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>"5 v 



A SECRET WORTH KNOWING. 



A TREATISE 



ON THE 



MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT IN THE WORLD 



SIMPLY TO SAY, 



INSANITY. 



THE ONLY WORK OF THE KIND IN THE UNITED STATES, 

OR, PERHAPS, IN THE KNOWN WORLD, FOUNDED 

ON GENERAL OBSERVATION AND TRUTH. 



i 



There are other Medical books which treat on Insanity, but comparatively 
few to the population, and none written by an Insane man. This contains a 
short History of the Author's case— giving the General Causes which pro- 
duced the Disease on him individually, Manner of Treatment and Termina- 
tion. Giving the only Treatment by which a Cure may be effected, the Man- 
ner of Detecting the Disease, and the Duties of Sane Parents towards the 
Insane offspring of their bodies; with some general remarks upon Id iotism, 
the Jurisprudence of Insanity, Suicide, &c. 



BY G.GRIMES, 

AN INMATE OF THE LUNATIC ASYLUM OF TENNESSEE. 



NASHVILLE, TENtf. 



1846. 



District Court of the United States ) 
For Middle Tennessee District: $ 

Be it remembered, that in conformity to an act of Congress of the United 
States of America, entitled "An act to amend the several acts respecting copy 
rights," on the 23d day of June, 1845, and in the 69th year of the Indepen- 
dence of the United States, Green Grimes, of said District, hath deposited 
in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, 
and which is as follows, to wit: "A Secret worth Knowing— A Treaties 00 
Insanity, giving the General Causes, Treatment to effect a Cure, Jurisprudence 
of Insanity, Suicide," &., &c. JACOB M'GAVOCK, 

Clerk of said Court, 



Lunatic Asylum, ) 
Nashville, Term., 17th May, 1845. \ 
This is to certify that Mr. G. Grimes is now an inmate of this 
Institution, and has been since June, 1842; that since he has 
been here he has written a book styled " A Secret worth know- 
ing — A Treatise on Insanity," and other subjects therein con- 
tained, and that his condition is as represented in said Book. — 
We furthermore certify that it was written in the officers' room 
of said Institution, and that the manuscript is original, from 
under his own hand and pen. Given under our hands the day 
and date above written. 

JNO, S. M'NAIRY, 
Practising Plrysician of the Lunatic Asylum. 
CHARLES HARRISON, 

An officer of the Asylum. 
DAVID R. DANIEL, 

Agent of the Asylum. 
GEO. W. MURPHEY, 

An Officer of the Asylum. 
R. C. K. MARTIN, \ 
JNO. M. HILL, / T , 
JOHN D. KELLY, ( lmstees - 
J. P. W. BROWN. / 




PREFACE. 

In laying this work before the public I have but two motives 
in view, one of which is to enlighten the people on what I con- 
ceive to be one of the most important subjects in the world, 
especially to the young and rising generation, and those and the 
friends of those who now are or may become mentally diseased, 
and which I conceive to be a duty due them from me. 

I have written it upon a pure conviction, believing that it will 
be a good family guide for parents, guardians and young students 
of medicine, and, in fact, I will venture to say, that any reader 
will be able to receive good advice from it.' 

The minister of the Gospel would doubtless contend that the 
ministry was the most important subject in the world. The 
editor of a public press would contend with the minister that the 
editorial department and the freedom of the press was a subject 
of much greater importance. The financier would perhaps 
equally contend with the minister and the editor that the subject 
of finance was of still more importance. The merchant would 
contend that the mercantile business was also a very important 
subject. The lawyer would also contend that the practice of 
law was a subject of great importrnce. The mechanic perhaps 
might say that the subject of mechanism was one of vast im- 
portance, and the farmer, as a matter of course, would equally 
contend with all that agriculture was a Subject of still much 
greater importance, as the fruits of the earth are requisite to 
sustain life. 

I might extend inferences through the different and variegated 



VI PREFACE. 

pursuits of life, and I am free to allow every one the liberty of 
exercising their various opinions upon the importance of the 
leading subjects of the day, but, in the mean time, I hope they 
will be equally free to extend towards me the liberty of contend- 
ing with all, that I believe the subject of insanity to be one of 
the greatest importance in the world, and it is a point given up 
by all men, with few exceptions, that the discovery of the heal- 
ing arts, and more especially that of detecting and healing the 
awful malady termed insanity, is the most important, and should 
stand number one among all other subjects. 

In the first place, that I may be able to throw all the light that 
I am in possession of, I will be compelled to give a short detail of 
my own case, and in doing this I will have to make use of initials 
in lieu of individual names to unfold it, to which I hope no per- 
son will take exception, as it is not my design to personate or try 
to blast the prospects of any lady or gentleman, but desire that 
the book, upon its own merits, shall rise or sink. 

The other motive that I have hejd in view is to enable me to 
raise some small means, by which I may be able to reasonably 
feed, clothe and educate my children. Relative to the plausi- 
bility of the motives, I leave the reader to judge. 

In giving you a statement of my own case, I will have to com- 
mence at quite an early period of my life ; I will even begin at 
my birth. Some persons may object to be governed by this book 
upon the ground that it is written by an insane man, but for that 
very reason they should not hesitate to be governed by it, as it is 
reasonable to suppose that a man who is diseased knows more 
about that particular disease than one who is not. 

I have been credibly informed that it is rumored in some parts 
of the country that I have compiled this work for the benefit of 
some other individuals, and that the manuscript is not my own 
production. In contradiction to this report, I can safely assert 
that no man on earth has any interest in it or the proceeds, except 
to receive the usual pay for services in the publication, and to 
agents for vending, &c; and as to its not being original, I give a 



PREFACE. Til 

certificate, on a preceding page, from the practicing physician, 
officers and trustees of the Lunatic Asylum, from under their 
own hands, signed officially, who are knowing to the facts, which 
certificate is sufficient to convince any rational mind that the 
rumor is utterly false. 

The "Secret worth Knowing" will be sold by retail at fifty 
cents per copy. Country merchants and others who reside at a 
distance from Nashville, and who may wish to procure the work 
by wholesale, will receive twelve copies upon the remittance of 
a five dollar current bank bill to the author or to the editor of the 
Nashville Union, by the first mail thereafter. Also, upon the re- 
mittance of one dollar, two copies will be sent. Correspond- 
ents will give their address and post-office, and great care will be 
taken to fill their respective orders. 

All communications except from regular appointed Agents 
must be post-paid. 



THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 



The writer was born in Orange county, State of North Caro- 
lina, on the 12th of February, 1809. My father emigrated to 
Maury county, Tennessee, in the fall or winter of 1811, at which 
time I was about two years old. He was one among the first 
settlers in that part of Tennessee : he was not rich, neither was 
he poor, but in ordinary circumstances ; he was well enough off 
to live free of embarrassment. He purchased one quarter - 
section of land, lying twelve miles south-west of Columbia, on 
the waters of Big Bigby, and within one mile of the town of Mt. 
Pleasant, then a cane-brake in the wild, howling wilderness, and 
inhabited by red men and the wild beast of the forest. I was the 
youngest son of eleven in succession, two of whom died young; 
I had two sisters, who were the first and second born. It was 
my misfortune to be bereaved of my maternal parent at twelve 
years of age ; I was then loved by all who knew me ; my sisters 
and elder brothers were all grown to be men and women, and 
were becoming incumben t with the cares of the world and their 
families, except one, the next youngest brother to me that was 
then living. He as a matter of course, was my favorite brother, 
as we were the only two left at home and were play and school- 
fellows. 

When I was about fourteen years of age, my father, as is usual 
with most men, married a second wife and brought my brother 
and myself a step-mother, who, in about a year afterwards, drove 
my brother from my embraces to seek a home among strangers. 

He bargained to live with a Parson S , then a stationed 

preacher and teacher of the Cherokee, Chickasaw or Choctaw 
Indians— I do not remember which — and on his way to the 
Agency, in crossing Bear creek, twelve miles west of Colbert's 
Ferry, on Tennessee river, he came to a premature death by 
drowning. I hope his spirit has taken its heavenly flight ; I loved 
him well, for he had always acted the part of a brother towards 
me. I loved him as dearly as I did my own life. There are 
brothers in the flesh and there are brothers indeed — he was my 
brother indeed. Hence upon this loss I became partially insane ; 
the disease assumed the character of moral insanity — melan- 
choly depression. 

In a short time afterwards my clothes were thrown out of my 




10 THE AUTHOR^ CASE. 

own father's house, and I driven from his mansion and embraces 
to seek a home among strangers before I was of an age suffi- 
cient to act for myself. I never would have left his fireside if I 
had not been driven from it by one who should have looked upon 
me with a mother's eye and assisted in properly raising me. But 
I was driven from the mansion of those whose duty it was at 
that time to protect me. 

I went to my eldest brother for advice and protection ; he was 
the eldest and I the youngest. Who should a boy go to for advice 
but a brother? He refused me advice — telling me that I was a 
worthless fool, and ordered me off to take care of myself, stat- 
ing that he did not care what become of me. I then went to 
another brother and made the same application, and expressed a 
desire to make his house my home. I met with the same re- 
fusal, but not in the same abrubt language. This brother pro- 
mised me that if I became incapable of taking care of myself at 
any time in the course of my life, he would act in the capacity 
of a father towards me instead of a brother; but my great mis- 
fortune was that he never complied with that promise until it 
was forever too late. I became weary of seeking a home 
among brothers — hence I was at a loss to know what course to 
pursue, having thus been driven from the embraces of those whom 
I loved above all others. However, being possessed of enter- 
prise and an energetic spirit, I concluded in my own mind to be- 
come a mechanic ; so I set about learning the trade of a dresser 
and builder of stone, which I followed, together with farming 
on a small scale, for something like seven years. In justice to 
my father, I must here say that in the division of his property he 
gave me an equal portion with my other brothers, or perhaps 
more than some of them. But my advice to him then was to 
keep his property in his own hands and take care of his insane 
son. My portion yielded me some five hundred dollars, the prin- 
cipal part of which I expended in trying to have myself healed 
the best way I knew how. 

At about sixteen years of age I had become convicted of sin 
and convinced of the necessity of an interest in the atonement 
of a crucified Redeemer. I attended the first camp-meeting ever 
held at English's camp-ground, near Shilo meeting house, in 
Maury county. I became awfully convicted during the three 
o'clock sermon, on a Sunday evening. It was a remarkable cir- 
cumstance, and if it will not be an intrusion upon the reader I 
will give a short and comprehensive account of my conviction 
and conversion, as I conceive that the subject of religion was 
one of the subjects that produced fanaticism. 

Five other young persons and myself went to the spring to get 
some cooling refreshment that flows from the bowels of the 
earth. While at the spring a friend and acquaintance of mine 
made a profession of religion in the woods and came to his tent 



CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 1 1 

shouting. Some one of the company inquired what caused the 
noise. I wickedly replied that I supposed another dog had pro- 
fessed religion. We walked up to his tent, when he took me by 
the hand and exclaimed : "Young man, without religion you are 
forever lost!" I saw a perceptible change in his countenance 
and expression from what was usual with him. It struck my 
heart with terror, and I turned and walked across the camp- 
ground to a brother's tent. I thought every step I made would 
be the last ; it seemed as if the ground would open and swallow 
me up ; every thing looked dull and dreary ; the way of life to 
me seemed to be hedged up and impassable. I, however, made 
out to get to the tent, and, like Saul of Tarsus, fell flat on my face 
upon the ground. I lay for awhile in this position, then turned 
upon my back. Every sin that is usual for boys to run into and 
that I had been guilty of, came across my mind and bore me to 
the earth as with the burthen of a heavy yoke. I thought I was 
on the brink of an awful precipice, ready to plunge into irre- 
coverable woe at the touch of the brittle thread of life. I lay in 
this condition for the space of three or four hours, aVid I could 
not have got upon my feet to have saved my life. All at once, 
as quick as thought, this heavy load of sin and guilt was re- 
moved, and I, lifted up by a higher power than man, placed 
upon my feet. A brilliant light shown in my soul, and my first 
exclamation was, "Glory be to him that ruleth on high !" Every 
thing wore a different aspect — the people looked lovely, and I 
thought even the trees of the forest were making their obesiance 
to the Creator of the world. Things I once loved I now hated, 
and things I once hated I now loved : in short, I loved every body 
and every thing but sin, and above all I loved Him who had so 
mercifully pardoned my sins and gave me this foretaste of Hea- 
ven. The change was just as perceivable to me as the ink on 
this parchment now is to the reader. I saw with the eye of faith, 
not with the natural eye, the image of the Son of God clothed 
in a white robe, with the injunction, " Follow thou me and I will 
make thee fishermen of men." I do not pretend to say that I 
heard these words spoken with my natural ears, but these im- 
pressions were at that time made on my mind. A new song 
was put into my mouth — even praises to the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sins of the world. 

I love to see the glowing sun 

Light up the deep blue sky, 
Along the pleasant fields to run, 

And hear the brooks flow by. 

How fresh and green the trees appear; 

"What blooming flowers I find; 
0, surely God hath placed them here 

To tell us he is kind. 

To Jesus let all children come, 
For he hath said they may; 



12 

His bosom then will be their home, 
Their tears He'll wipe away. 

The beasts that on the herbage browse 

All thank him different ways, 
And ltttle birds upon the boughs 

Sing sweetly to his praise. 

Shall I alone forget to thank 

The God who made us all? 
I'll kneel upon this mossy bank 

And on my Maker call. 

Though I am but a little boy, 

Yet I to God belong; 
His works are full of love and joy, 

And He will hear my song. 

If such a change as the one above alluded to be religion, I once 
had it. Some of my readers might come to the conclusion that 
if I ever had religion I have it yet. I will give my views more 
fully in the latter part of my book on this subject, under the 
head of " The Possibility of Apostacy." All the men in the 
world cannot convince me, upon mature reflection of the matter, 
(since my mind has been a little more composed than it was in 
1842) but what I was once a converted man of God. I know all 
about religion, still I fear I know nothing about how I lost sight 
of this good spirit. God only knows — I can't tell. However, I was 
taught to believe in the impossibility of Apostacy, which I con- 
ceive to be a dangerous doctrine to preach to a young convert. — 
It is best to encourage them to prove faithful until death, that 
they may receive a crown of life. 

At about seventeen years of age I became anxious to connect 
myself with a religious family. Having been driven from the 
embraces of my own relatives, I thought it advisable to form 
a connexion with religious people that I might receive religious 
instruction. Hence I married the daughter of an old minister of 
the Gospel, hoping to receive the advice of a father both tempo- 
rally and spiritually, which I did receive at his hands for a few 
years: but when I became more insane (the disease assuming the 
character of monomania, originating from moral insanity in the 
latter part of 1832, at which time I was living on Cathey's creek, 
in Maury County, and about twenty-three years of age,) he un- 
fortunately took the wrong view of my condition, and began to 
cease giving me parental advice and commenced abuse, turning 
his kind treatment into evil treatment, which made me sink into a 
further state of despondency. During the seven years above al- 
luded to, and within about two years after I was married, I was 
violently attacked with billious or nervous fever. I sent for a 
physician within twenty-four hours. His course of treatment 
was to take one quart of blood from the arm, give a severe emetic 



CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 13 

sixty grains of calomel and twelve calomel pills, all in the space 
of thirty hours, which was sufficient to kill a man in health. — 
From that attack I never fully recovered, though I have no doubt 
the physician prescribed the course that he thought the most ad- 
visable. It perhaps would not be amiss to remark here that two 
years out of the seven I lived the life of an overseer, or manager 

of a plantation, for a Judge K , then residing in Maury 

county. I found in him a gentlemen, but my employment an un- 
pleasant business. During all this time I was a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and a part of the time a class- 
leader — living in the enjoyment of religion and in the favor of 
God. 

Isaac was ransomed while he lay 
Xlpon the altar bound; 

Moses, an infant, cast away, 
Pharoah's own daughter found. 

Joseph, by his false brethren sold, 

God raised above them all; 
To Hannah's child the Lord foretold 

How Eli's House should fall. 

David the lordly lion slew, 

And o'er Gath's champion trod; 
Josiah from his boyhood knew 

His father David's God. 

Children are thus Jehovah's care, 

Thus youth may seek his face, 
Since his own son he did not spare — 

With him he gives all grace. 

Grace, like the young of whom we read, 

In him to put our trust, 
Who proves in every time of need 

As merciful as just. 

Lord while like them our course we run, 

Be our Almighty friend, 
And in the footsteps of thy Son, 

Conduct my readers to the end. 

Would no Pharoah's daughter or Joseph's brethren wear the 
laurels of finding me when a boy? 

We will again return to temporal matters. I defy man to pro- 
duce one dollar of an unpaid debt that I contracted during this 
seven years of my life. I worked hard day in and day out, and 
though I was not growing rich I was living comfortably and do- 
ing well enough, had I have had sense enough to have known it. 
I would advise all young men to remain in the occupation to 
which they are brought up. 

The reader will understand that I was laboring under moral 
insanity and monomania during these seven years. George 



14 

Washington, the father of his country and first President of the 
United States and one of the signers of the Constitution, and 
Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and 
the framer of the Constitution, positively declared that no man 
should be punished for any crime he might commit when in a 
state of insanity. They furthermore declared that the insane 
shall be reasonably fed, clothed and furnished with medical aid 
at the expense of their respective States. This one clause was 
sufficient ©f itself to have immortalized those two noble spirits. 
Would to God their successors in office had followed in their 
footseps and carried out the principles of their illustrious pre- 
decessors. 

At the end of these seven years above alluded to, I had a 
sufficiency of household and kitchen furniture to live comforta- 
bly, a few hundred dollars in cash and cash claims on solvent 
men, that I had earned by my trade, and my stock consisted of 
four head of young horses, about fifty to sixty head of stock hogs; 
a small stock of cattle, principally milch cows, a small stock of 
sheep, about one hundred and fifty barrels of corn, with other 
provender, plenty of poultry, &c, and a good trade which I was 
master of, and was indebted about fifty dollars. On this I had a 
wife and three small children to support. 

I had a friend X , then living in the town of Mt. , in 

the State of T , who was raised behind a merchant's coun- 
ter and then engaged in the mercantile business with a Mr. B. 

My friend X had been, so far as I knew, a warm friend of 

mine from our first acquaintance in boyhood. I was his true 
friend at the time and thought him to be mine, though I sometimes 
had fears of his friendship. He proposed to me to sell all the 
property I could spare and vest the proceeds in a small stock of 
goods, and open a business at some country stand that I might 
select — telling me that it was the only business and the only road 
that led to fortune and fame. Allured by the hope of wealth 
and charmed by the voice of fame, and he representing himself 
to be solvent, (though he was insolvent, but kept his condition 
concealed from me) and promising that I should share equally and 
to give me all the advice requisite to facilitate business, I finally 
- consented and sold all the property I had except my household 
and kitchen furniture, one horse and some milch cows. He thus 
led me from a trade that I was brought up to and a master of 
into one that soon became master of me, and induced me to sell 
things that were real and vest the proceeds" in things that were 
not real; he made me rich in one night on paper by his extrava- 
gant calculations, and made every thing look very pleasing. — 
Consequently we purchased a small stock of dry goods and gro- 
ceries, amounting to about fifteen hundred or two thousand dol- 
lars. I took them to Swan creek, in Hickman county, and opened 
business in the name of my friend and myself. He did not ad- 



CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 15 

vance one dollar as capital in the concern. I sold by retail on 
credit and some for cash, and for the first two and a half years I 
did well — my balance sheet showing a nett profit of about five 
thousand dollars. I replenished our stock quarterly at Nashville. 
During this time new banks were springing up every where, and 
money was quite plenty. At about the expiration of this time 
my friend X purchased his friend B.'s stock of goods and pro- 
perty for himself and me. He was so much pleased with my 
course in business that he made the purchase without my 
knowledge or consent, having had no previous understanding 
with me on the subject of the trade, which was contrary to my 
wish. By this time the old concern of himself and friend B. had 
become in quite an embarrassed condition; and in my absence, 
without having said one single word to me on the subject, he drew 
bills on a commission house in New Orleans to the amount of 
some six or eight thousand dollars (I never could ascertain the 
precise amount as I had no way to find out only through him, 
and he would not tell me) in the name of the new concern, and 
used the proceeds to pay the debts of the old. He purchased 
cotton at a high price to meet said bills, upon the sale of which 
cotton we sustained a loss of four thousand dollars, which brought 
the new concern into an embarrassed condition with the old. I 
was not well pleased with this treatment, nor with the idea that 
what I had accumulated in the two and a half years should be 
thus swept from me by the intrigues of a man who professed to 
be my best friend. It caused my confidence to be further shaken 
in him, and I therefore proposed that we would dissolve partner- 
ship, that I might return to a farm and my trade. But he boasted 
that he had me under his thumb — just where he wanted me, and 
there he intended to keep me. In the mean time he had promised 
faithfully that if I should become mentally deranged at any time 
during the existence of our partnership, he would see to my 
proper treatment until I recovered. He professed to have a per- 
fect knowledge of the disease, and wished for a violent case that 
he might show the people how he could effect a cure. I was 
laboring under this awful malady at that very moment, and re- 
peatedly asked his opinion, candidly, in regard to my case — ex- 
pressing my opinion that I was a fit subject for the Lunatic Asy- 
lum at Nashville. He made light of my fears of insanity, and 
said that the institution at Nashville was not intended for people 
of my class — that I would not be received there, and that it was 
designed only for the rich and great of the land. He said he 
would have nothing to do in placing me there, and was glad no 
one else would. He wished to keep me at home that he might 
cheat, defraud and abuse me. He thus compelled me to do the 
hardships and drudgery of the concern for ten years, and I a dying 
man! These circumstances caused the disease to change its form 
from moral insanity and monomania to mania or raving madness, 



16 THE AUTHOR'S CASE. 

accompanied with epilepsy, about the time or soon after he drew 
those bills on New Orleans. The banks in parts of the United 
States began to suspend specie payments, and the moneyed con- 
cerns of the country became dull and dreary. I made fine col- 
lections during these two and a half years, and in the mean time, 
during the winter season, bought live pork of my customers and 
sent it to Alabama, which yielded a small profit. My friend 

X ~ received through my hands twenty thousand dollars, more 

or less, and how he applied it he and his God only knows— I can- 
not tell. He would draw instruments of writing, or bonds, and 
read them over to me, affirming that they were just as he read 
them, and the gentleman in whose favor they were drawn was 
in a great hurry — that it was unnecessary for me to read them, 
but to sign them quick — saying that he would take no advantage 
of me, &c. When, however, these writings were presented for 
liquidation, they turned out to be entirely different to what they 
were at first represented. 

I made some improvements during this time, and from the one 
store grew a little village styled Palestine, which was in a pros- 
perous condition. This brought me up to the spring of 1 835, when 
I visited Philadelphia, by the way of Wheeling and Baltimore, 
for the purpose of replenishing our stock of goods. In the mean 
time I had become partially deaf, originating, I suppose, from the 
attack of billious or nervous fever before alluded to. At times I 
could hear as well as any man — then again it would be that I 
could not hear more than every third or fourth word and would 
have to guess at the balance. For six weeks, at one time in my 
life, I could not hear it thunder. Then again my hearing would 
return. What would the reader say of a man who would seek 
advantage of another while in this condition? God commands 
us to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. Thus 
I was first cheated out of my property and money and then de- 
frauded out of the privileges of a free but insane citizen, guaran- 
tied to me by the laws of my country. 

I remained at this town of Palestine for three years longer, 
struggling hard to recover the loss sustained upon the cotton 
purchased by Mr. X , all of which time he was leading an un- 
fortunate brother of mine (who was, like myself, laboring under 
insaniy) into endorsement after endorsement and one eternal 
bondage after bondage, endeavoring to repair the old concern 
with the means and upon the credit of my brother and myself. — 
My brother was not to blame for my misfortune nor I for his, for 
we were both dethroned of mental powers. I would not ask him 
to endorse for us, neither would I ask any other person, except in 
a very few instances, for I knew there was danger. I am told 

now that Mr. X- . is circulating a report that I was the cause 

of his embarrassment. After the above statement, I leave the 
reader to determine who produced the insolvency — the party 



CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 17 

that was solvent at the time the partnership and endorsements 
were entered into, or the party that was insolvent. My brother 
and myself were solvent, and X and his brother were insol- 
vent — which brother of his led me, in the mean time, into an en- 
dorsement with him upon an administration bond of ten thou- 
sand dollars, upon which endorsement my credit sunk twenty- 
five per cent, in one month right at home. But the bond was 
signed and filed in the clerk's office and it was then too late to 
recall it. They professed to be my warm friends, but were my 
seeret enemies — my life was at stake every hour, and instead of 
assisting me in time of need they were running about the streets 
and through the neighborhood hunting up and circulating evil 
reports against me, and seeking every advantage of me in their 
power. 

During the last three years I did business in Palestine, I found 
an increase in the sale of goods, but a decline in collections that 
did not count well. I became weary of the business and sold out 
the property and stock of goods to one of my former clerks and a 
neighboring mechanic. The sale amounted to about five thou- 
sand two hundred dollars, and I, maniac-like, placed the bonds in 

the hands of Mr. X , besides sending him, for the previous 

three years, by his spies and runners, all the money I could col- 
lect, say about fifteen thousand dollars, more or less. I placed 
the books and notes on our customers in the hands of our succes- 
sors in business together with a former clerk, to act as my agents 
in the collection of the money due us at that place, which was 
at that time between twelve and fifteen thousand dollars — de- 
termined in my own mind to return to a farm and aid personally 
in winding up the concern. 

This brought me up to the first of January, 1838. In a few 

days after this I was persuaded by this man X , my partner 

in business, to visit the town of Carrollville, Wayne county, Ten- 
nessee, and purchase a half acre lot and appurtenances, together 
with a stock of dry goods, which purchase I made at his strong 
solicitation, amounting in all to about eight thousand dollars, 
and opened a new business in the name of Mr. X and my- 
self. I visited Louisville, Kentucky, for the purpose of replenish- 
ing our stock of goods, while my partner was at home shaving 
off notes, drawing bills and getting our own paper discounted in 
bank, receiving all the money collecting at Palestine, leading the 
honest yeomanry of the country into endorsement after endorse- 
ment, and driving me through thick and thin, wet and dry, heat 
and cold. We ordered a stock of goods from New York in the 
spring of 1838, for both houses, fifty-five miles apart. In addi- 
tion to this, I received a lot of groceries from New Orleans on 
consignment, consisting of two hundred sacks of coffee and a 
small lot of sugar, and was supplied with salt on consignment 
during my stay in business there. In addition to this I re- 



18 

plenished our stock of dry goods occasionally from Louisville, by 
orders, and groceries from New Orleans. I remained in busi- 
ness there two years, and during the time the sales for groceries 
and salt on consignment amounted to twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars cash, and the same amount for dry goods, more or less — not 
recollecting the precise amount — all this time sending groceries 
to supply my partner's store, and remitting him all the money 1 
received for sales and collections, amounting to the amount of 
the sales, except what I paid over for salt and groceries on con- 
signment, and even sent him a large portion of that money. He 
kept up his spies and runners all the time to receive money and 
prevent me from running away. I can inform the gentleman 
that I never run away except in imagination — I run beside my- 
self, as a great many other men have done. He never sent to 
me for money but what I sent him all I had — reserving only a 
few dollars to buy provisions to sustain life. I sent him two 
thousand dollars, at one time, and three thousand in a few days 
afterwards was counted out to him by the writer, with a faithful 
pledge that he would replace the whole five thousand at any 
time when called for. I sent for 4t in the space of two or three 
months afterwards, and also sent a one thousand dollar bank note 
by the clerk to be changed. I was under a hard press for the 
money at the time, but instead of sending me the five thousand 
dollars, he used two hundred out of the thousand dollar bill, and 
sent the clerk back with eight hundred dollars. When he would 
get all the money I had he would abuse me for not having 
more — still drawing bills and buying cotton to meet said bills, 
to pay the debts of the old concern. I was taken suddently sick 
in the fall of the last year — two doctors were called in and Mr. 

X sent for. My family were sick also. My disease was 

pronounced congestive fever, but they never thought of crying 
out insanity — the doctors either forgot that word or had never 
learned it, and they poured enough calomel into my system to 
have killed a horse. They treated the case as a common fever — 
no protective measures were adopted either by my friends or 
physicians — at least if there were I never could discover it, and I 
watched with the eye of an eagle to see if any of them would 
make one bare effort at any time in my life beyond that of an 
ordinary sane man. Such effort was never made until I arrived 

at my present condition. Mr. X remained all night and part 

of next day, administering upon my estate, and I a dying maniac. 
1 noticed in his administration that he was smart enough to carry 
all the money off wkh him. It is best not to administer upon a 
man's estate while dying — you perhaps might shorten his days 
by it. A man likes to see his friends when he is sick, and he 
also likes for them to take care of him until he is well. One of 
the doctors went off in a few days, pronouncing me a dying man, 
and the other said I was getting well. I finally recovered par- 



CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 19 

tially from my sickness, as did my family also — none of us quite 
died that season, but came very near it. My life was in the 
hands of my God, but every thing else I had was in possession of 
my friends and physicians. In justice to the two young men 
in my employ as clerks, I believe they did the best they could un- 
der the circumstances. 

The reader will perceive that Mr. X received through my 

hands, from first to last, in cash, cash claims and groceries, up- 
wards of one hundred thousand dollars. At the end of this two 
years I determined in my own mind to sell out at Carrollville and 
wind up the dreadful machine. I accordingly sold out to a 
neighboring mercantile firm, and the sale of the lot and improve- 
ments thereon, together with the remaining stock of goods, 

amounted to about eight thousand dollars. I sent Mr. X the 

bonds received on said sale. He certainly should have grown 
very rich by this time. I purchased a small farm about five miles 
from town and moved my family out to it for health during the 
next summer, which brought me up to 1840. The bosom com- 
panion of my youth, and whom I loved above all others, was 
taken from me by the God who gave her, together with my 

youngest daughter. In the mean time Mr. X- was getting 

out writs to have me tried for my life; for what reason he did not 
know nor do I believe he cared — at the same time professing to 
be a friend to the insane. I would still cite him to the Lunatic 
Asylum, telling him that I was a fit subject for it. He had it in 
his power to walk across a camp-ground and save my life, but 
would not do it. 

But bis friend for nought he could abuse ; 
When aid was asked he would refuse; 
Nor would he give a cooling drink 
To save a friend from death's dark brink. 

How holds the chain which friendship wove? 

It broke — and soon the hearts it bound 
Were widely sundered, and for peace 

Envy and strife and blood were found. 

The merriest laugh which then was heard 
Has changed its tone to maniac screams, 

As half quenched memory kindles up 
Glim'rings of guilt and feverish dreams. 

And where is she whose diamond eyes 

Golconda's purest gems outshone, 
Whose roseate lips of Eden breathed,. 

Say where is she the beautious one? 

Beneath yon willow's drooping shade, 

With eyes now dim and lips all pale, 
She sleeps iD peace — read on her urn, 

A broken heart — this tells her tale. 



20 THE AUTHOR S CASE. 

And where is he, that tower of strength, 
Whose fate with hers for life was joined? 

How beats his heart, once honor's throne- 
How high has soared his daring mind? 

Go to the Asylum's room to-night: 

His wasted form, his aching head, 
And all that now remains of him 

Lies shuddering on a maniac's bed. 

Ask you of all these woes the cause? 

The festal board—the enticing bowl 
Too often came, and reason fled, 

And maddened passions spurned control. 

Learn wisdom then-— the frequent feast 

Avoid, for there with stealthy tread 
Temptation walks to lure you on, 

Till Death at last his banquet spreads. 

Then shun, shun the enchanted bowl. 

Though now its draught like joy appears, 
Erelong it will be fanned by sighs, 

And sadly mixed with blood and tears. 

When I came to get into the whole secret of the matter, Mr. 

X had led me into his financial concerns in bank to the 

amount of about forty-five thousand dollars, and about thirty 
thousand dollars to wholesale merchants and farmers, and bound 
me as endorser with him on broken paper for about seventy-five 
thousand dollars more — making in all, at the end of the ten years 
in which he was to make me rich, about one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars— a nice way of making a man rich. The banks 
took from me, under the hammer, a house and lot worth two thou- 
sand dollars at two hundred, by what they called a kind of lien. 
This is a specimen of their course with most of my real estate and 
cash claims up to the time I was brought here. What they have 
done since I do not know, but they treated me like a stranger be- 
fore. I thought they would have had some consience in my case, as 
I was not personally the financier nor the borrower of their money. 
If they are disposed to act justly they will yet give me credit for all 
the real estate and cash claims deposited with them at a fair price, 
for when property changes owners it should change at fair value. 
If the reader is out of bank Iwould advise him to stay out. 

As I have touched upon the subject of religion, the reader 
might pause for a moment and say, " You are not in principle a 
Baptist, and you are not a Presbyterian — pray tell what you 
are." I am nearer a Methodist in principle than any thing else. 
If the Methodist Episcopal Church would use but one mode of 
baptism, and that by immersion, as was immersed the son of God 
by John in the river Jordan, and wash one another's feet, as did 
he and his disciples, and receive no member into their churches 
without an experimental knowledge of a change of heart from 
nature to grace. With these three amendments to their present 



CAUSE AND TREATMENT. 21 

discipline, and if the balance of the orthodox churches would con- 
centrate upon this one church, the religious part of the communi- 
ty would be nearer to the footsteps of Him who came to save 
you than any people since the days of the Apostles. One Lord, 
one faith, one baptism. We will here give you a metaphor: 
Suppose your friend dies — what would be your course of inter- 
ment? Would you not dig a grave, make a coffin, and place in 
it the corpse and lower it into the bowels of the earth and fill up 
the grave? Or would you place them on their knees and sprinkle 
or^pour a small portion of dirt on their heads? Just so with 
baptism. When you would baptize a living soul would you not 
bury them in the water and let the waves close over them? Then 
you may say with truth that a soul has been buried in baptism, 
but in sprinkling and pouring you cannot say that. Phillip and 
the Eunuch both went down into the water, and he baptized him. 
What did they both go down into the water for, if he was not 
baptized by immersion? " You must be buried with me in bap- 
tism," saith He who came to save you. Still baptism is not the 
putting away the filth of the fiesh, but the answer of a good con- 
science. If you should think my views to be scattering, just bring 
them in one grand chain and you can make them link. 

The writer of this don't claim to have ever fought for his 
country, but be has seen the day he would have done so had it 
been necessary. I had one brother that fought in the Greek war 
and lived on raw-hides, and another who served under the illus- 
trious Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. I was then quite 
a small boy, but I would have marched out with as much zeal as 
any boy in the nation, and, had it been necessary, would have 
scaled the walls of a fort, torn the batteries and thundered grape 
shot into the very mouths of the enemy. But if the reader will 
remember, there was no call to fight for this country from the 
time I was fifteen years of age up to the date of 1832 — between 
those two dates I held myself ready. At about eighteen years of 
age I received the appointment of adjutant-major of a regiment 
of Tennessee militia, and in 1832 I became a candidate to fill the 
vacancy occasioned by the resignation of the colonel; but some 
who had professed to be my best friends (and some of them my rela- 
tions) proved false and cast their votes for a man who had never 
held office in the regiment, and thus defeated me. I therefore 
felt under no obligations to fight for these pretended friends, but 
thought if he was their man at home he might fight their battles 
abroad. If his father fought for his country, so did my brothers — 
so we were equal on that score. 

But, says the reader, you have got to fighting battles. Pray 
tell us how you would fight a battle? I would fight to the best 
advantage, and that would be to whip the enemy; and if I had 
the command of a battle I would make a bold rush upon the 
weak point, fire off my small arms first, keep them in hot play, 



22 the author's case* 

and not let them rest one moment. I would keep my eyes 
skinned, and hold back the big guns in reserve until I saw the 
main body of the army heave in view. Thus the enemy might 
suppose I had no artillery, and I would take them by surprise. — 
Hold on to the big gun, boys — if you let the enemy get posses- 
sion of it you are gone. If I had possession of a fort I would 
keep it as long as I had a man or a weapon to fight with; and if 
the enemy had possession, I would take the fort as if by thunder 
storm, with cannon balls and grape-shot; and if I was fighting a 
swamp fight I would fight upon the plan of Gen. Francis Marion. 
Read his life, and you will learn how Jasper and Newton released 
the prisoners. Some time in 1840 I started to move to an ad- 
joining county from the one I then lived in. A doctor who held 
a balance of a note on me, for which I was bound as security, 
and of which I had paid about two-thirds, and was making ar- 
rangements to pay the balance, (upwards of two hundred dol- 
lars) when he had me arrested with a writ of capias ad respon- 
dendum, for the purpose of having my body imprisoned, when, 
strictly speaking, I might have been considered his insane patient. 
He was one of the doctors called in when I took sick at Carroll- 
ville. This was a nice way to heal insanity. I took out a 
damage writ for him, and when brought before the court a judg- 
ment was rendered against me for the cost of the damage suit, 
which was erroneous and perhaps prejudicial — though it was not 
the first erroneous judgment rendered against me by a few. — 
During this year and in 1841 1 gave up all my property and means 
into the hands of my friends who were bound for me and Mr. 

X -, to be sold by the officers or to be disposed of as they 

might think proper. How much is yet unpaid I cannot tell, but 
if they have and will keep their accounts straight, and give all 
just credits at a fair rate they may yet see the day that they may 
get the principal part or all of their money — especially those who 
have lost by endorsements or loaned me money at lawful in- 
terest — and what money they do receive shall be applied by a 
pro rata distribution, without regard to size or men, if they don't 
get to serving garnishments and injure the sale of this work. — 
Those who have taken the benefit of the bankrupt law will of 
couse not expect to receive any thing. 

During this time my unfortunate brother, who had borne a 
liberal part of my difficulties for ten years, came to his death. — 
This bereavement sunk me into a still further state of insanity. 
May the Lord in his mercy remember his widow and orpans; I 
will remember them in temporal things. 

In the fall and winter of this year I purchased two flat-boat 
loads of pipe staves on Tennessee river and floated them to New 
Orleans. I worked hard at the oars on my way down, being 
over anxious to pay debts. I was taken with a further relapse of 
fever, insanity and epilepsy, and when I arrived at the port of 



CAtfSE AND TREATMENT. 23 

destination the article was selling low in market and money was 
scarce. Hence my trip was not profitable, and after disposing 
of my lumber and paying a bill of six hundred dollars in New 
Orleans, together with the payment of hands and other contingent 
expenses incurred, I had but little money left. I took passage on 
board the steamboat New Albany, bound for Florence, Alabama. 
While coming up my life seemed still more dreary. I went 
ashore in Perry county, out of heart, out of money and nearly out 

of friends. I walked several miles to the house of a friend C , 

and stayed all night with him, and he loaned me a horse to ride 
home. He then had it in his power to save my life and win great 
laurels to his brow both in time and eternity* I traveled the 
next day shivering with cold and fear. This brought me up to 
the 1 2th day of February, 1 842. Within about one mile of Pales- 
tine, where I had sustained heavy losses, and within about five 
miles of Merri wether Lewis' grave, I dismounted my horse, took 
from my pocket a weapon, and in a freak of insanity and raving 
madness, with a severe fit of epilepsy, I put an end to all things 
with me for a while. I have but a faint recollection of this act — 
not sufficient to give the reader a full and correct detail. I am 
told that I was found in this condition and carried into a house, 
and through the goodness of God and medical aid I was brought 
too for some purpose, He only knows what — perhaps to write this 
book for the benefit of the people — for just as the mind directs 
the pen doth move. I was there taken care of and treated kind- 
ly for a day or two, and all the time by a part of the community; 
another part began to hold their grand councils. I was treated 
specially kind by the landlord and his family, the physicians and 
my brothers, with some others of their neighbors, for which kind 
treatment they will please receive my hearty thanks. But the 
great misfortune was they took the case in hand just eighteen 
years too late. Or, perhaps, if they had taken it in hand ten 
years earlier it might have answered a very good purpose. How- 
ever, I never was treated as an insane man one single day of my 
life up to that time. 

At which time they held their grand councils, 

And sentenced that I should be shot, 
But he who rules the seas and mountains 

Thundered judgments on them which said they should not. 
A nice sentence to pass on an insane man, 

The writer's ideas they were keen to borrow, 
The one who was to pull the trigger had better held a fan, 

That they intended to have me shot to-morrow. 
This they tried from me to keep concealed, 

But their plans to me were all revealed. 

I will here give an elegy in poetry to the memory of Meri- 
wether Lewis, who, in company with his friend Clarke, explored 
the Rocky Mountains: 



24 THE AUTHORS CASE. 

A Lewis and a Clarke were both great. 

But of the two Lewis was the greatest of the great , 

He was by his country bartered, 

And so was my brother and I, 

And with them I desired to die. 

L.'s condition no man could detect; 

"Will Tennessee never o'er his grave a monument erect? 

I've strood by his grave and mourned the cross 

That a man of so much worth was to his country lost. 

I've heard that dead men could not talk, 

But I can both talk and walk, 

And I've been as dead as any man you ever saw, 

Either by natural death or law, 

And with my pen I can write, 

I'll keep my country's cause in sight. 

One mile with a broken heart I could not come. 

Five, fifteen and forty were the ones I most did love, 

I had traveled them an hundred times before, 

And am traveling them millions more. 

I believe if I had been placed under the same kind of treat- 
ment at any time between the age of fifteen and the date of 
1832, for six months, that I have received since I have been an 
inmate of this institution, that I would this day have been a 
sound and useful man among my readers. But I could get no 
man to act either for love or money, only at just such times and 
in such way as they saw proper. I offered a reward of five hun- 
dred dollars for any man to detect my condition and act upon it 
as they should do. I would have paid it cheerfully; but on the 
contrary some of my friends told me that their Bibles taught 
them to cheat and defraud and abuse me. I told them to watch 
close — that not one single passage could be found in the Bible 
wherein they were authorized to cheat and defraud any man, 
much less an insane man. But you can find in the Bible where 
you are commanded to heal, teach and take care of those who 
are diseased either in body or mind — let the disease be of what- 
ever character it may — and to see that they be not cheated and 
defrauded, and to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked. — 
Some of the very same men who had always refused to treat my 
condition as that of an insane man, and had stood opposed to 
bringing me here, when it was then forever too late, seemed to 
be very wrathy, and wanted to know why I had not given them 
the credit of treating my case. 

I now give the reader a view of the past eighteen years in 
poetry: 

REVIEW. 

My first physician can take back his calomel of sixty grains, 

To take his twelve pills was pretty tough, 
They all my constitution broke and destroyed my brains. 

So the reader might well suppose my road was pretty rough, 
The quart of blood made me so weak 

I could not plough to make meat and bread, 



CAUSE AND TREAMENT. 25 

1 was for some time I could not speak, 
His emetic was too severe for much about it to be said. 

My second can take back his grains forty-five, 

My third can take back his thirty, 
For under such a course no man could survive, 

So this all lumped together looks quite dirty; 
When this they see they'd better keep as still as mice, 

Such a course might do to physic a horse, 
For if I write again I'll write twice or thrice; 

Thus they left me half dead or worse, 

The man I am now with gives grains from ten to twenty, 

And he of course should know, 
And he says it is a plenty; 

He heals men as fast as they can come and go. 
They had just as well, in a rage of fury, 

Hang their patients without jndge or jury. 
Mr. X. can take back his razor, 

And use it to 3crape an Irish grazier. 

Eighteen years they had to cheat and defraud, 

They were keen for eighteen more, 
To abuse the writer both at home and abroad, 

But, alas, they found him laying in blood and gore; 
And then they undertook to heal, 

But ah! it was too late— 
To their surprise he did reveal 

To them their eternal fate. 

In the past eighteen they lost many laurels, 

And instead of healing their insane, 
They sought for many quarrels, 

And now have nothing to abuse but his remains. 
They set themselves up as perfect judges, 

And promised that they would show- 
But they cut so many splurges 

It caused me to strike the blow. 

They held their Bibles taught them thus, 

1 told them then they were mistaken; 
No Bible teaches you to make a fuss 

Around a man whose head and heart is breaking. 
They turned their dying insane out of doors, 

And thought they were doing somothing great 
To wait and see the blood stream from all the pores, 

They were keen to see the writer's fate. 

To take care of their insane they were too good, 

Least in the act expenses shonld incur, 
This they told me from my boyhood, 

To treat my case they would refer; 
They promised that in years one 

They would have all things done 
But then they thought they must have two, 

In which they gave nothing new. 



26 

But they then required a third, 

And in it they lost their bird; 
And they fed me ihrough the fourth 

On nothing else but boiling broth. 
Then again they must have five, 

In it to abuse and drive; 
And affirmed in the year six, 

That they would all things fix. 

Then they must have the seven — 

Thus they run from eight to eleven, 
And in twelve, thirteen and fourteen, 

They were all engaged in sporting; 
And in fifteen and sixteen 

They their plans were fixing, 
And in seventeen and eighteen 

They might still be seen a waiting. 

But in them all, eighteen in number, 

They did commit an awful blunder — 
Their poor insane they all forgot, 

To heal the writer they would not. 
But they had to drink his blood 

Because they left him in the mud, 
Some of them expressed great sorrow, 

I hope they'll all be better by to-morrow. 

They then required another year, 

In it they would act sincere; 
The writer had them years eternal, 

And bid farewell to his dear colonel. 
In spite of all their spleen and hate, 

The fame of this work will be great. 
They will have to face it on the final day, 

When they will not know what to say. 

In conclusion of the short sketch of my own case, I must here, 
in justice to my old friends and new acquainainces, say that 
since I have been here ladies and gentlemen of the first respecta- 
bility in the city of Nashville have received me into their houses 
and treated me with hospitality and respect. 

And in return for their pure friendship 

I've give them my advice how to worship, 

To name them all 'twould be too tedious; 

I hope they are and will become religious, 

When this work comes out, if people think it fine, 

The editor and my heirs will keep it up through time; 

And when before the public laid, 

A second edition can be made, 

And when the first and second is blended 

The secret will not be half ended. 

I have written many pages — 

On it I will try for wages. 

My children must be fed and clad, 

For weaving of the first web I'll be glad. 




THE AUTHOR 



INSANITY. 



In the first place, there is a difference between insanity and 
Idiotism. An idiot is a foolish male or female, in an entirely 
helpless condition. An insane man or woman is one who is de- 
ranged and dethroned of the power of thinking for and the ca- 
pacity of taking care of themselves — one who, in a fit of epi- 
lepsy, would tear out his own eyes — one who has some very 
good ideas on some subjects and very bad ones on others— one 
who is subject to be led about by the whims of a perverse gene- 
ration of people — a monomaniac or a maniac. All men that are in- 
sane are not insane on the same subject. Some men are insane 
upon one subject and some upon another, some upon one subject 
and not upon others, and some are insane upon all subjects. Insanity 
Is not produced from the same cause in every case : it is produced 
from various causes, and there are different grades of the dis- 
ease — some men are partially insane and some are wholly insane. 
Under these different heads the disase is produced as follows: — 

1. It is hereditary in some families — the son inherits the father's 
estate and sometimes his disease. 

2. It is sometimes produced from the death of a near relation 
or of a bosom friend. Two hearts may be united in bonds of af- 
fection—one of them may die and the other become a wandering 
maniac. 

3. It is sometimes produced from religious excitement. Some 
men become insane upon the subjects of religion, death and 
eternal judgment — three of the most dangerous subjects that a 
man can become insane upon. 

4. It is frequently produced from sudden hard spells of sick- 
ness, fevers, &c, and sometimes by much study. 

5. It is sometimes produced from sudden disappointment and 
misfortunes, or reverse of fortune. 

6. Sometimes it is produced from sudden fright and dread of 
consequences. 

7. It is sometimes produced from disappointed affection. 

8. It is sometimes produced from a change of occupation — 
where one has been brought up at one trade and led to forsake it 
in the prime of life and engage in another. 

9. It is sometimes produced from pretended friendship — pro- 
fessing to be a man's friend and all the time his secret enemy.— 



30 INSANITY. 

That thing called pretended friendship, when a man's life is at 
stake, is the most degrading thing on earth. 

10. It is sometimes produced from close application to busi- 
ness, but never from a relaxation of business. 

11. It is oftener produced from maltreatment and abusive lan- 
guage than any thing else. It is never produced from kind 
treatment. 

12. It is sometimes produced from intemperance and opium 
eating. Then, again, on the contrary, it is sometimes the case 
that intemperance is produced by insanity — frcf&i the want of 
having good examples set before the subject in early life, or the 
want of proper parental care and advice— from the want of 
proper tuition and training of the mind. Train up a child in 
the way he should go, and when he becomes old he will not de- 
part from it. So says the book of all books, by which we should 
all be governed. 

13. A joint may be dislocated, an inflammation take place 
and extend to the brain, thereby producing insanity. 

14. The liver may be affected so as to produce insanity. 

15. The spine and marrow may be affected and thereby pro- 
duce insanity. 

16. There is a ligament running from the shoulder to the brain 
that may be so affected as to produce insanity. 

17. The brain itself may be affected and thereby produce in- 
sanity. 

In short, a disease may locate itself in any part of the system 
and extend to the brain, thereby producing insanity, monomania 
or mania, and raving madness. There are many other cause 
such as over-exertion, exposure, sudden changes from heat to 
cold, going into the water after having taken mercury or calo- 
mel, the loss of sleep or appetite, and game-making, tittering 
and laughing at a man's misfortunes, blows on the head, &c; 
but those under the above specified heads are the principal 
leading and grand causes. 

The disease may be healed as easily as any other disease in 
the world if taken in time, and there are but two plans by which 
a cure can be effected. The manner of treatment should be as 
follows: — 

It requires, in the first place, that the friends of the subject 
take the case in hands. If an insane man is left to have himself 
healed, he is just as apt to kill himself as to heal himself, and 
more apt. It requires medical aid where you are not blessed with 
an insane hospital. One very good plan is to place the subject 
under the care of a very careful physician and let him alone be 
the judge of the case, and not listen to one single word that may 
be said by common people about the condition of his patient; 
give not one single abusive word nor suffer any one else to abuse, 
and let him show by his conduct as well as by his words that he 



TREATMENT. 31 

may confide in him. Notwithstanding you should show all this 
kind protection, you should at the same time dCal with candor 
when you see your patient's life at stake — but act kindly, speak 
kindly, and treat kindly — administer your medicine in small doses 
and repeat them often. Mild emetics and purgatives are the 
most valuable remedies ; a seaton in the back of the neck is 
sometimes useful. Feed upon light diet, such as rice, tea, milk 
and mush, squirrel or chicken soup, and a limb of the flesh, with 
loaf bread. The physician must be very certain that he is not 
mistaken in the condition of his patient, and not pronounce him 
sane until he is sane, nor well until he is well. The patient must 
be taken from the transactions of all business while healing* All 
the physicians in the world cannot heal the disease and require 
the subject to transact a heavy business. They must also betaken 
from the presence of any person or persons and from the presence 
of any of the circumstances which may have produced the disease. 
It must be taken upon from the first to the third stages of the disease. 
There are just as many stages of the disease as there are nerves or 
fibres in the brain; I do not know how many nerves or fibres there are 
nor do I believe any other man knows, therefore I cannot tell how 
many grades there are in the disease, but there are a great many; the 
first nerve may become affected or lose its balance, and if you neglect 
the restoring of it the contagion will extend to the second, and from 
the second to the third, and if not taken in hands at this stage it will 
extend to the fourth, and from this to the fifth — running from one 
to the other through the brain or around the forehead in rapid suc- 
cessions, until the whole becomes diseased, be they more or less. 
We will suppose the disease to locate itself in the right temple, 
and extends through the nerves until it terminates its dreadful 
progress in the last nerve which is in the left temple. At this 
juncture of time it would be impossible to effect a cure. The bet- 
ter plan of healing is to bring them to the Insane Institution at 
Nashville, Tennessee, or some other lunatic asylum nearest in 
your reach, and place them under the care of men appointed b) r 
the State to take care of such persons. I have been an inmate of 
the above named institution for the last three years in the last 
stage of the disease, and I must here, in justice to the practising 
physician, trustees, matrons and assistant officers, say, that in 
point of hospitality, prudence and care, they may be equalled but 
cannot be surpassed. It is too frequently the case that in many 
families they select their insane to cheat and defraud, abuse and 
bemean,and force them to do the hardships and drudgery of their 
business, when they should be taking care of them. If God, in 
wisdom and mercy, blesses you with the power of thinking for, 
and the capacity of taking care of yourself, and he creates you 
half a dozen sons, all sane but one, and let that one be the first, 
second, third, fourth, fifth or last, it is made your especial duty to 
provide for that insane one in preference to all others — not to ex- 



32 INSANITY. 

cess or extravagance, for insanity does not know when it is run- 
ning into extremes — it is simply your duty to reasonably feed, 
clothe and protect them, and to use all due means and all due dil- 
ligence in due time, by which you may have them healed, taught 
and taken care of; and it is unbecoming in the others to throw up 
to the parent that he is taking care of the insane one, or even hint 
to him that he is doing so, for it is no more than his duty. It would 
be more credit to them to aid the parent in taking care of the in- 
sane one than throw up to the father that he is doing it ; and if in 
the absence of your care as sane parents and sane brothers to- 
wards an insane son or brother, that son or brother comes to a 
premature death for the want of your care, you are held responsi- 
ble at the bar of Almighty God for the life of your son or brother, 
and for the well being, healing, teaching and reasonably feeding 
and clothing that unfortunate son or brother. But if you are 
living within the discharge of your duty, if you are acting in the 
capacity of sane parents or brothers towards your insane son or 
brother, and he steals a march upon you and takes his life, in that 
event you are not held responsible— you stand acquitted ; but if 
you are living outside of your duty, and have been living so all 
along this little short journey of life, you are held firmly bound at 
the bar of Almighty God for every crime he commits while in a 
state of insanity. The sane are made the stewards of the insane — 
it is a kind of stewardship ; it is your duty to act in a two-fold 
capacity— to act for yourselves and for your unfortunate son or 
brother. Some persons try to excuse themselves upon the ground 
that they did not know it to be their condition, which is no excuse 
—for it is made your duty to investigate those things, and the 
time to investigate is when they are children, or at some time in 
their raising. Even the heathen tribes take care of their insane 
and why not this enlightened nation? 

The Son of God, while on earth, healed such persons himself. 
He acted in the capacity of a physician — he commanded that they 
should be brought unto him that they might be healed. When He 
ascended on high He left His holy example, by which you who 
profess to be His followers might be governed in such cases. That, 
is a holy will, and if you will examine it you will find written in 
plain, legible letters — -plain to be read by any man — the words 
heal, teach and take care of — to rear up, cheer up and to build 
up. He did not recommend the abusing of such persons, but 
looked upon them as objects of compassion and mercy. Kind and 
mild reproofs, meek reproofs, mixed with brotherly kindness and 
affection, are excellent in such cases. But harsh, abrupt reproofs 
mixed with malice, ambition and malignity, and that from a per- 
son in whom the subject has no confidence, only adds fuel to the 
fire ; it creates wrath against the day of wrath. First take the 
beam out of thine own eye, then thou canst see clearly how to 
take the mote out of thy brother's eye. Many poor souls are lost, 



TREATMENT. 33 

and lost to irretrievable wo, just for the want of a friend to cry 
out insanity and act awhile until they get well. And if your 
friend becomes insane, and you wish to have him or her, as the 
case may be, healed, taught and taken care of, and you have not 
the means, the laws of the State of Tennessee has made ample 
provisions in such cases. If you bring your insane friends here, 
that does not go to say that you should keep them here always but it 
goes to say that you should keep them here until they get well or die. 
If, simply because you are blessed with the capacity of judg- 
ing the value of property, and your unfortunate fellow being is 
not so blessed, you take from that man or woman, boy or girl, 
by any unjust or unfair measures, one dollar, it is held as an act 
of theft in the first degree in the sight of God, for it is made 
your duty to trade for yourself and them. If there is any time 
in the whole course of a man's life that his friends should show 
what they are, it is when he is in a state of insanity, and that is 
generally the very time they do show precisely what they are. 
The discovery is made in about one case in every hundred, and 
in about ninety-seven out of every hundred their friends play 
the very old scratch. About the time they think they intend to 
destroy themselves they mount their ponies and raise the hell- 
hound cry, and make them go it right or wrong; and when their 
friend is dead they look back and feel quite foolish. After they 
have cheated and defrauded their insane out of everything they 
have, and abused and drove them under whip and spur day and 
night, and put more on them than human nature can bear, and 
finally find them in their rooms with their brains blown out, 
drowned in some creek, hanging by the neck, or with their 
throats cut, they come out and tell the people if they only had 
them back they would take care of them and treat them kindly. 
There is but one kind of insanity that should be treated with dis- 
respect, and that is hypocritical insanity — for a man to go about 
and tell the people he is insane to evade hard labor, when he is 
not, that class should be treated with contempt and disrespect ; 
but where it is a disease located in the brain, it should have its 
just deserts in due time according to its day and time. Some 
men would perhaps say that the just deserts of insanity would 
be to imprison it in the penitentiary ; others would say it should 
be hung, and others, perhaps, would think it just to hand it a 
weapon and command it to take its life. But I would advise you 
to read your Bibles, the laws of your country, the constitution of 
the State and the United States ; they will teach you what the 
just deserts of insanity are; they will protect insanity; the in- 
sane laws do well enough — all that is wanting in such cases is a 
proper application — it is a very plain law — a boy of a dozen 
years of age can travel through it. There are fine turnpike 
roads leading to this institution ; it is a large and spacious build- 
ing, situated on a beautiful, elevated, healthy piece of ground,. 




34 INSANITY. 

and furnished with eighty-seven rooms, and all well furnished 
with bedding. Ladies and gentlemen of the first respectability 
from different parts of the United States visit the institution, and 
very frequently ascend to the fine cupalo on the top of the build- 
ing for the purpose of viewing the magnificent scenery sur- 
rounding the city of Nashville. It is by no means a penitentiary 
to those of its inmates who have any thing like reasonable health, 
In short, it and its facilities are complete restoratives of depre- 
ciated mental powers. Those who should be friends to the un- 
fortunate men and women who are mentally diseased will al- 
ways have their own way and notions about their condition — 
they are always too young or two old — too rich or too poor, the 
weather too warm or too cold, too wet or too dry, the creek too 
high or too low, too soon or too late, the mill is to go to, or there 
is a big cheating and defrauding game on hand — any thing, with 
many families, comes in before taking care of their insane. If 
you cause a soul to come into this world incapable of thinking 
for, trading for and taking care of itself, and you live wholly in 
the neglect of treating its condition as such, you had just as well 
murder it when a child, and perhaps better, for in that act you 
would have it out of the way at once, whereas the other is a slow 
murder. It is a tenfold greater crime to live in the neglect of 
treating a case of insanity that may occur in your land or nation 
than it is to live in the neglect of healing virtue, for virtue needs 
no healing and insanity does. Virtue can take care of herself 
and insanity cannot. It is a tenfold greater crime to cheat, de- 
fraud, slander or lead insanity astray in any respect whatever, 
than virtue. If by good fortune insanity happens to make you 
a soft bed, you are entitled to a portion of it — and if by misfor- 
tune it happens to make you a hard bed, sanity must take insani* 
ty's fate. It is not the man who sells an insane man property 
upon a credit at a high price and gets him involved in debt, and 
takes it back at a high price, or who sells him goods upon 
credit, or who lends him money at high interest, or endorses 
for him, neither is it the person that sets traps and snares 
to lead the insane astray to gratify their own propensities. None 
of these are the friends of the insane — it is the man who heals, 
teaches and has an eye to their safety — it is the one who reason- 
ably clothes, feeds, and gives a drink of water to cool their ra- 
ging thirst, and sees that they are not cheated and defrauded — 
and when able to labor, it should be required of them in a rea- 
sonable and light degree. 

You, as a community of people, where you have had a reason- 
able time given you to suspect insanity, and any good cause shown 
you why you should suspect it, are. held just as much respon- 
sible at the bar of Almighty God for living in the neglect of treat- 
ing the subject as such, as you are for not punishing sane men for 
doing wrong. It is no disgrace to you to have an insane son, 



TREATMENT. 35 

brother, uncle or nephew; neither is it any disgrace to you to have 
an insane son-in-law, brother-in-law or cousin, nor is it a disgrace 
to you should your insane relations do wrong. If God gives you 
an insane childit is not your fault, nor can it be helped; still there 
is a disgrace attached to it — yet the disgrace is not upon the part 
of the insane but upon the part of the sane. But, says the reader, 
you are stumped now. Not so — I will lead you out of it in a few 
words. You receive the disgrace by maltreating them and living 
in the neglect of treating them as insane persons. 

Insanity is the last thing upon the face of God's earth that you 
should seek to blast the prospects of, both for time and eternity. 
Your Bibles teach you to go out in search of such persons and 
see if there be any in your land and nation of this class. If so, 
when you find them, this book will teach you what to do with 
them. 

Religion and virtue combined are the bold defenders and pro- 
tectors of insanity whether upon young or old, male or female. 
I don't care how base the form, all that religion and virtue wants 
to know is the soul insane — if so, says religion and virtue, I am a 
friend to that soul. Religion and virtue, high-minded and hon- 
orable, reaches out the arm and takes the subject by the hand 
and calls it brother. They are closely allied — do not under- 
stand me to say that religion of itself produces insanity, but re- 
ligious fanaticism — they are brothers — they are even twin bro- 
thers. Religion and virtue take a delight in treating a case of 
insanity, and when you see a community of people running 
about their streets, camp-grounds and neighborhoods, hunting up 
and circulating reports upon the insane, take it for granted that 
there is no such thing as virtue or religion reigning in the hearts 
of that community. But if you see them step to the subject and 
have them healed, taught and taken care of, you may then say 
that that community knows something about religion in earnest. 
It is sound policy in any government to take care of their insane 
— a community of people grow rich by taking care of their in- 
sane, and they grow poor by living in that neglect. God will not 
let any community of people prosper that maltreats insanity — no 
gentleman will abuse the insane — you cannot hire him to mis- 
treat them — no, not for all the money in the world. 

I will cite you to three cases of insanity that occurred within 
the circle of my acquaintance : The first case, E., occurred with a 
gentleman from thirty to thirty-five years of age, in the year 
1830. It first assumed the character of moral insanity with 
melancholy depression. The gentleman ranked in the first class 
of dry good dealers of his town and seemed to be in a prosper- 
ous condition. In the space of four or five years it assumed the 
character of mono-mania, and in the course of three or four 
years more it took the form of mania or raving madness, ac- 
companied with epilepsy. Having met with a reverse of for- 



36 INSANITY. 

tune in the mean time, which operated against the disease, and 
no protective measures having been adopted for ten years, during 
which time he was engaged in a heavy retail business, his disease 
terminated in suicide in 1840. 

The second case, A., occurred in 1831, in the person of a gen- 
tleman about the same age, who ranked amongst the first far- 
mers of his country. The disease also first assumed the charac- 
ter of moral insanity with melancholy depression. In the space 
of three or four years it assumes the character of mono-mania, mania 
and raving madness. He also met with reverses of fortune on ac- 
count of liabilities for others. No protective measures were adopt- 
ed and this case also terminated in suicide in 1841. 

The third case, W., occurred with a gentleman about the same 
time, and it run through the same form: the same treatment was 
rendered and no protective measures adopted, but on the con- 
trary a course rather upon the rigid order was adopted towards 
all three of these cases. It also terminated in suicide in 1841. 

All three of these men made attempts on their lives frequently 
at intervals. All three were American born and once in afflu- 
ent circumstances and of the first standing in society, and all 
leaving families and many respectable relations and friends to 
mourn their untimely loss. So much against maltreatment in 
cases of insanity. Would it not have been better to have sent 
them to a Lunatic Asylum? 

I will now cite the reader to the case of Captain Lewis, here- 
tofore mentioned in a piece of poetry. He was a man of the 
highest order of talent and of unblemished character. In the 
early settlement of the western country he rendered some im- 
portant gratuitous services to the government, and subsequently 
he applied to the proper authorities for a governmental appoint- 
ment, wjiich was refused him. This unexpected disappointment 
produced a melancholy depression. He justly considered him- 
self thrown aside by his country by being refused an appoint- 
ment after having explored the Rocky Mountains in company 
with his friend Clarke, mainly for the benefit of the government 
of the United States, with many other services rendered to his 
country, in doing which he underwent many fatigues and much 
arduous labor. When, however, another was promoted over 
him, he became deranged and left his native State for New Or- 
leans. After remaining there a short time he started on his return 
home. At about thirty miles west of Columbia, in Maury county, 
Tennessee, and near Grinder's stand, in Lawrence county, he 
met with a hard contest in his own mind, and finally his noble 
spirit sunk under his misfortunes, and he come to a premature 
death by committing suicide. It was more than his nature 
could bear to return to a country that had bartered him off for 
his inferior. He was taken into the house of Mr. Grinder soon 
after the wounds were inflicted, and expired before the dawn of 



TREATMENT. 37 

the next day. His remains lie mouldering in their mother earth 
near the spot where he breathed his last. The last time I saw his 
grave it was grown over with wild briars and shrubbery, in a 
remote part of the uninhabited barrens of Lawrence (now Lewis) 
county. Thus died the noble Lewis — next in enterprise to the 
indefatigable and intrepid Christopher Columbus. 

Three other cases of insanity occurred within my knowledge : 
The first, E. W., was that of a young gentleman about twenty 
years of age, whose friends, however, took the right view of his 
condition and placed him under kind and protective measures. — 
It terminated in a recovery, and he is now a respectable member 
of the bar in the practice of law. 

The second case, J. D.W., was that of a gentleman of about 
twenty-five years of age. His friends adopted measures and he 
also recovered, and is now a respectable minister of the Gospel. 

The third case, D., was that of a gentleman aged twenty-three. 
Kind and protective measures were adopted and the case ter- 
minated in a recovery, and he also is now a respectable minister 
of the Gospel. 

So much for kind treatment in cases of insanity. It was a 
fortunate thing for them to be thus treated kindly. These latter 
cases assumed as great a tendency to prove fatal as did the first 
three that terminated in suicide. I could cite you to many other 
cases, but I think these to be sufficient to convince any rational 
mind of the great impropriety of pursuing a rigid course of treat- 
ment in cases of insanity. Some men advotate the doctrine that 
men may become insane and the disease w r ane off. It is all hum- 
buggery, and wont bear telling. God never created the soul that 
became insane and come right of itself. Do not understand me 
by this that a man cannot be brought right by their friends upon 
the principles herein laid down. 

Pinel has related a very striking case : A man had creditably 
filled his place in society until his fiftieth year. He was then 
smitten with an immoderate passion for venereal pleasures and 
frequented places of debauchery, where he gave himself up to 
the utmost excess, and then returned to the society of his friends 
to paint the charms of pure and spotless love. His disorder 
gradually increased, his seclusion became necessary, and he very 
soon became a raving maniac. 

Ray has related one equally striking. He says a man had 
lived many years in a happy and fruitful union, and had acquired 
by his industry a respectable fortune. After having retired from 
business and led an idle life, his predominant propensity gradu- 
ally obtained the mastery over him, and he yielded to his desires 
to such a degree that, though still in possession of his reason, he 
looked on every women as a victim destined to gratify his sensual 
appetite. The moment he perceived a female from his window 
he aunonnced to his wife and daughters, with an air of the ut. 



38 INSANITY. 

most delight, the bliss that awaited him. Finally this partial 
mania increased to general mania, and shortly after he died in an 
insane hospital at Vienna. 

He again relates a case of a robust and plethoric young man 
who came to reside in Vienna. He was unusually continent, 
and was attacked with erotic mania. Gall, pursuing the treat- 
ment indicated by his peculiar views of the origin of the disease, 
succeeded in restoring him in a few days to perfect health. 

Another case is related of a well educated, clever young man, 
who, almost from his infancy, had felt strong erotic impulses, but 
succeeded in controlling them to a certain extent by means of 
equally strong devotional feelings. After his situation permitted 
him to indulge without constraint in the pleasures of love, he 
soon made the fearful discovery that it was often difficult for him 
to withdraw his mind from the voluptuous images that haunted 
it and fix it on the important and even urgent concerns of business. 
His whole being was absorbed in sensuality. He obtained re- 
lief by an assiduous pursuit of scientific objects and by finding 
out new occupations. 

He also relates the case of a very intelligent lady who was 
tormented like the subject of the last mentioned case, from in- 
fancy, with the most inordinate desires. Her excellent educa- 
tion alone saved her from the rash indulgences to which her 
temperament so violently urged her. Arrived at maturity, she 
abandoned herself to the gratificatioinsf her desires, but this 
only increased their intensity. Frequently she saw herself on 
the verge of madness, and in despair she left her house and the 
city and took refuge with her mother, who resided in the country, 
where the absence of objects to excite desire, the greater severity 
of manners, and the culture of a garden prevented the explo- 
sion of the disease. After having changed her residence for that 
of a large city, she was, after a while, threatened with a relapse, 
and again she took refuge with her mother. On her return to 
Paris, she came to me (says Dr. Ray) and complained like a per- 
son in perfect despair. Every moment (she exclaimed) I see 
nothing but the most lascivious images — the deman of lust un- 
remittingly pursues me at the table and even in my sleep. I am 
an object of disgust to myself, and I feel that I can no longer es- 
cape madness or death. 

A morbid propensity to incendiarism, or pyromania, as it has 
been termed — where a person, though otherwise sane, is borne 
on by irresistable power to the commission of crime — has re- 
ceived the attention of medical jurists, by most of whom it has 
been regarded as a distinct form of insanity — annulling respon- 
sibility for the acts to which it leads. Numerous cases have 
been related and their medico-legal relations amply discussed by 
men of renown. In a portion of these cases the morbid pro- 
pensity is excited by the ordinary causes of insanity ; in a larger 



TREATMENT. 6V 

class it is excited by that constitutional disturbance which often 
accompanies the menstrual periods, but in the largest class of all 
it occurs at the age of puberty, and seems to be connected with 
retarded violation of the sexual organs. The case of Maria 
Franc, quoted by Gall from a German journal, who was executed 
for house-burning, may be referred to the first class. She was a 
peasant, of little education, and in consequence of an unhappy 
marriage had abandoned herself to intemperate drinking. In 
this state a fire occurred, in which she had no share ; but from 
the moment she witnessed this fearful sight she felt a desire to 
fire houses, which, whenever she was under the influence ot 
spirits, was converted into an irresistable impulse. She could 
give no other reason nor show any other motive for firing so 
many houses than this impulse which drove her to it. Not- 
withstanding the fear, the terror and the repentance she felt in 
every instance, she went and did it afresh. In other respects 
her mind was sound. Within Hve years she fired twelve houses, 
and was arrested on the thirteenth attempt. 

Many other cases like these might be quoted, particular^ 
from the writings of Esquirol, but the above are sufficient to il- 
lustrate a truth as generally recognized as any other in pathology 
and to convince the most sceptical mind that if insanity, or, in 
more explicit words, morbid action in the brain, inducing a di- 
minuation of moral liberty, ever exists, it does in what is called 
erotic mania. 

During the year 1825, or thereabouts, F. D., a gentleman in 
the circle of my acquaintance, who was a respectable farmer, 
arose from his bed one morning, dressed himself and walked out 
at the door— -his wife supposing he had gone to his daily avoca- 
tion. At the usual breakfast hour he failed to attend, and she 
went to the stable yard and about the farm in search of him, but 
without effect. Her fears of some sudden misfortune became 
more excited, and she had some of the neighbors called in and a 
search commenced in the wood-lands. After searching dili- 
gently, on the second day he was found in a state of exhaustion, 
without his hat, his clothes torn, and a pole in his hand with 
which, he said, he was killing snakes. They took him to the 
house, rendered some medical treatment, gave him tonics and 
nutritious diet, at the same time rendering kind treatment. The 
case terminatad in a recovery, and he was doing reasonably well 
the last account I had of him, which was in the winter of 1844. 
If no protective measures had been adopted he might in all pro- 
bability been killing snakes to this day. This was a case of 
mania-portu. In such cases you should approach the subject 
with great caution and care, and use mild words and mild means. 

Insanity is not confined to any particular age, neither is it con- 
fined to any particular individual. It has an unlimited space ; 
it exists whenever man exists, and it is just as contagious as 



40 INSANITY. 

small-pox or measles. A sane man may keep company with an 
insane man and contract his habits until it will become impossi- 
ble for him to wean himself from those practices. Some of the 
finest of laurels are won in cases of insanity, and it is very fre- 
quently the case that some of the finest of laurels are lost. 

There is nothing that raises a man higher in the estimation of a 
high minded and enlightened community of people, nor is there 
anything that elevates him higher in the estimation of the Deity, 
than to take care of an insane son or brother; nothing looks bet- 
ter in the eyes of men. On the contrary, nothing can sink a man 
lower in the estimation of a gentleman than to live in that neg- 
lect ; there is nothing sinks him deeper under the ire and wrath 
of a sin avenging God. Awake to your own interest— it is to 
your own interest to heal insanity. 

The smallest hurts sometimes increase and rage 
For more than art of physic can assuage; 
Sometimes the fury of the worst disease, 
The hand by gentle stroking will appease. — Prichard. 

The great desire to wait and see, in cases of insanity, very 
frequently prevents action. This desire is very prevalent in 
some parts of the country. I have heard some men express a 
desire for a case of insanity that they might have the credit of 
taking care of them, and when the case occurred they cruelly 
turned their insane out of doors. God creates a soul but once, 
and he creates a generation of people but once ; every genera- 
tion of people have to account for themselves ; the time to heal 
is when you become sick, and the time to lead your friend to an 
insane institution is when he becomes insane. Every hour any 
disease steals upon the human system makes it that much more 
fatal. I have always been at a loss to know what motive Deity 
has in dethroning men of their reason. I have, however, been 
of the opinion that he gives a man an insane son or brother to try 
his heart and views, that he may see whether they will take care 
of them or not. 

If you will examine the history of tyrannical governments you 
will find that any person who dares to abuse an insane man or wo- 
man does so at the risk of his own life. The common people rise 
in arms in favor of the insane and put down all who insult insanity. 
They are reasonably fed and clothed even where kings and mon- 
archs rule — then why should this enlightened republic let other 
governments outstrip her upon the most important subject in the 
world? 

Wo be to that nation of people that drink down the blood of 
their insane. The man that would cheat and defraud insanity 
would run his hand into the pocket of a dying man and filch the 
last dollar therefrom and affirm it to be his; he would steal from 
the dead and dying. A frightened maniac who would tear out 



TREATMENT. 41 

his own eyes is more to be pitied than the man who has lost a 
limb. Examine all the medical books and histories together, 
with every other authority derived from a respectable source, 
and you will not find the first case of insanity where there has 
been a cure performed short of the friends of the subject taking 
the case in hands. Insanity sometimes lives to be of a good old 
age under kind treatment, but under a rigid course of maltreat- 
ment it cannot live longer than about a middle age. It snatches 
thousands into eternity, whether prepared or unprepared. Time 
and tide wait for no man or set of men — it glides swiftly on its 
wings. If God gives you an insane son to-day, this is the day to 
begin to take care of him. He does not give you twenty or thir- 
ty years to maltreat in; and when taken into eternity either by 
natural or accidental death, he does not give him back to you 
that you might have the credit of rendering kind treatment. — 
Therefore it is best to make use of the golden moments and take 
care of them, lest they might slip your fingers. If I was a judge 
of a court or a practitioner of the law or of medicine, and I could 
not define that a criminal at my bar, or my client or patient 
was insane, and treat him accordingly, I would quit my profes- 
sion; and if I was a minister of the gospel or an acting justice of 
the peace, if I could not define that a soul under my care or my 
neighbor was insane, I would quit the ministry or throw up my 
commission. 

We will compare the man that labors under insanity to a 
spoke in a wagon wheel. You may start your wagon in a great 
hurry — one spoke may be crazy — you rush it over the hills and 
stones — presently out flies the spoke. You drive on carelessly — 
after a while out flies the second. Well, you say to yourself, you 
will watch for the third, and you rush along. The first thing 
you know out comes the third, and soon after down come the 
wheel and your wagon is broke down. You are then in a nice 
fix. Just so in the wheel of time: every soul fills its space in this 
great wheel — we may be counted as spokes in this wheel — one 
spoke may be a little crazy — you may gather around it in clans 
and abuse and drive, and the first thing you know out flies the 
spoke by self murder. Well, you say to yourselves, we will 
watch close for the next — you keep up your .abusive language, 
and presently out flies the second. Well, you say to yourselves, 
we most assuredly will watch for the next — you still abusing. — 
The first thing you know out flies the third, and when this occurs 
it comes very near bringing the wheels of time to a close on your 
heads. They are all gone into eternity — it is impossible to get 
them back. You look back and remember the blessings with 
which you were endowed by high heaven, and by the aid of 
which you might have healed them ; and when it is placed en- 
tirely out of your power to discharge the duty you owe to your 
unfortunate fellow beings, to yourselves and your Creator, you 



42 INSANITY. 

feel quite uncomfortably situated ; and when you remember the 
kind treatment that others have received at the hands of their 
friends and relations, who were in a like condition, and how 
careful they have been to take care of them, and who are still 
healing and teaching them, and you in the mean time drinking 
the blood of yours for your maltreatment, it pays you up well for 
your smartness. 

We will compare it again to the corner stones of a wall. A 
half dozen stout men may gather around the first stone and prize 
about until they get it out, and when it is out you cannot get it 
back to its proper place. Just so with the second, third and 
fourth — and when the corner stones are taken away the walls 
cannot stand long. At first one or two stones fall — the number 
gradually increase, until finally the whole wall comes with a 
crash. Men in affluent circumstances and of the first standing in 
society might be considered among the corner stones of the hu- 
man family. A hint to the wise is sufficient. If men are guilty 
of crime, I would recommend having them up before the authori- 
ties and try them, and if they are sane and adjudged to be-guilty, 
you may prepare the gallows or place them in your working in- 
stitutions, according to the grade of crime. If, however, the 
criminal is insane, you should place him in an institution to be 
healed and protected from any further crime. The most efficient 
medical aid in your reach should be applied to in such cases, 
and they should decide upon the existence or non-existence of 
aberration of mind without prejudice, or partiality, which any 
real medical man would do. Quacks should not be called on in 
cases of importance — keep every spoke and corner stone in its 
proper place in due time, then the wheels of time glides smooth- 
ly on and the balance of the wall stands firm. It is not a com- 
mon thing to labor under insanity and be treated kindly. God 
pity the condition of the soul that labors under this awful malady 
whose friends maltreat it. 

We will again compare the man who labors under insanity to 
the young man in the tombs cutting himself with stones, whom 
no man could tame — no, not even with fetters — until he was 
healed by the son of God. He was not abused by this good 
Samaritan, but was looked upon by him as an object of compas- 
sion and mercy. 

We will again compare the insane to the young man that weait 
down to Jericho and fell among thieves, was robbed of every 
thing he had, stripped of his raiment, beaten and left half dead. 
A Jew passed by on one side and a Levite on the other, and left 
the young man lying in blood and gore. A Samaritan passed 
that way and took him up, carried him to an inn, paid the two 
pence that was requisite, and had him healed. By this act he 
saved the life of the young man, and thereby became his Lord, 
and no doubt won the applause of all good men, and was re- 



TREATMENT. 43 

warded by the Father of the good Samaritan who healed the 
young man in the tombs by receiving at his hands blessings of 
both a spiritual and temporal nature. It seems that the Jews 
and Levites were the class of people that passed by the writer 
for several years. The good Samaritan never took him up or led 
him out of the tombs until it was ten years to late. It is best to 
act as Samaritans in such cases. 

The physician and friends of the unfortunate sufferer should 
be very careful not to let the patient undergo sudden changes of 
heat or cold, but keep them in an uninterrupted and calm repose; 
bathing in warm water and washing with clear soap ocasionally, 
is an excellent remedy; and shower bathing, say once a day, if 
the weather is not too cold, is also a fine remedy for this disease. 
Where you are not prepared with bathing tubs or reservoirs, you 
can very easily place the patient in a chair and your water 
slowly on the forehead, which will extend over the body until the 
patient is reasonably bathed. In the mean time keep the body 
covered with a blanket, so as to prevent a sudden change from 
heat to cold. You should not use the cold bath while giving 
mercury or colomel. However, but very little of this kind of 
medicine should be used, and when it is, it should be administered 
in very small portions and preceded with an emetic. From ten 
to fifteen grains of calomel in a dose is sufficient for any case of 
insanity; even in the most robust constitutions fifteen grains is a 
sufficiency, and by all means never rise twenty in any case. Let 
the calomel be followed by oil or salts, sanative pills, such as 
Peters', and tonics and stimulant medicines. The use of mercury 
is seldom or never necessary, and when it is used it should be 
used with great caution. In cases attended with much heat 
about the scalp, flushing of the face and strong pulsation, blood 
letting would be necessary, but not too freely. Of the quantity 
you must be governed by the condition of the patient. The lan- 
cet should be resorted to especially where the disease is accom- 
panied with epilepsy. Where there is much heat, it would be 
proper to shave the head and keep it cool by means of cold lo- 
tions or an oil skin cap filled with ice or iced water. If the symp- 
toms above mentioned are very acute and the patient is not in an 
alarming condition, blisters to the occiput or nape of the neck 
are often serviceable. When tfee scalp is not hot, and the ten- 
dency is rather to stupor than to a high degree of excitement, 
blisters are usefully applied on the top of the head; but do not 
blister to death — there is reason in all things. Bathe the legs 
and feet in a warm infusion of mustard or horse radish. In the 
mean time do not forget to give the patient light, nutritious diet, 
and as the patient improves, meats my be allowed, with some por- 
ter or ale. The physician or nurse should be the judge of the 
quantity. 

In the fatal progress that the disease has made upon my sys. 



44 INSANITY. 

tern, it was accompanied with fits of epilepsy. I have had them 
sometimes everyday, sometimes every other day and again every 
third day. I have even had as many as twenty in a day — but 
regularly every four weeks, or at the change of the moon. When 
I had one of those fits on me, I knew no more what I was doing 
than if I had been dead, and when they would pass off I would 
be in a tolerably calm, reposed condition. I was afflicted with 
them, to a greater or less extent, from the age of fifteen years up 
to the time I was brought here, in the transaction of a heavy busi- 
ness the principal part of the time, and suffered a reverse of for- 
tune which made my condition more critical. I was much ex- 
posed to the inclemency of the weather, and was not permitted by 
those who had me in their power to have time to be healed. 

If a man be taken suddenly sick, he and every thing he has is 
in the hands of his friends, physicians and his God; and if he is 
insane and they take a notion to have him healed, or suffer him to 
kill himself, they soon have it done. You should apply to the 
most efficient medical aid in your reach in such cases and act with 
great caution. You had just as well administer a dose of arse- 
nic to a man as a large dose of calomel in a case of insanity. A 
quack doctor will soon destroy an insane patient. If a physician 
cannot define that his patient is insane and treat him according- 
ly, he should not be allowed to practice medicine. 

It requires close discrimination to define sanity from insanity. 
It may be detected by the subject becoming restless — he fre- 
quently walks the floor for an hour at a time, sits down for a few 
moments and then walks again. In some instances they walk 
the floor a half or the whole of a night without sleeping. They 
sometimes become peevish and fretful — seem to be careless and 
indolent, and seem to be sinking into a state of despondency. In 
other cases they use excessive energy in their daily avocations 
and pursuits of life. They frequently become flighty and unsta- 
ble in all their ways; and if you are conversing on the subject of 
insanity, and an insane person is present, you will see them get 
up and walk off; they do not like to hear the subject mentioned. 
Nothing escapes their observation — they notice every thing that 
passes and store it in memory, good or evil, for or against you, ac- 
cording to the treatment they receive at your hands. The sub- 
ject is irritable and sleepless, and not unfrequently frightened out 
of one doze of sleep into another — runs on and talks nonsensical- 
ly, and when accompanied with worms, as is frequently the case, 
you will notice them picking the nose, hair and clothes with their 
fingers, and become frightened at the cracking of a stick that 
they may tread upon, supposing it be a serpent, and are easily 
frightened at any noise. Worms are not uncommon, even with 
adult persons, attended with fever or flushness of the face and 
sometimes with spots; they become thirsty and drink water in 
large quantities. 



DETECTION. 45 

Parents should be careful to set good examples before their 
insane, for they know no better than to live up to the examples 
set before them by those in whom they place confidence. If a 
case of insanity occurs in your land and nation, just as you treat 
it just that way you may expect to be treated by the subject and 
your Creator. If you treat it kindly, an all-wise providence will 
reward you by rilling your barns and store-houses with plenty, 
but if you maltreat and lead it to a premature end, he will 
rewarded you by sending judgments and curses upon your heads. 
Some persons are of opinion that we will all be marshaled at the 
bar of God, there to render testimony against each other. It is 
all humbug. He needs no testimony — He knows all things. — 
He sometimes makes use of the unfortunate by which to judge 
the world. He is sitting in judgment always — He judges men of 
their acts as they commit them. The judgment day is yesterday, 
to-day and forever — from the beginning to the end of time. — 
There will be a last day — a doomsday — a final end of all things; 
when it will be said, Come ye, my blessed, enter into the joys of 
thy Lord; or Depart, ye accursed, into everlasting punishment, 
prepared for the Devil from the foundation of the world. 

The world was once destroyed by a flood of water, and but 
eight souls saved, namely, Noah and his family. The next time 
it is destroyed it will be destroyed by a flood of fire in one gene- 
ral conflagration, and it is nice to suppose the kind of fire. The 
common fire you have in your fire-places is a blessing sent you 
by an all-wise God, by which you might take an insane son or 
brother and have him healed or taken care of, and he might live 
many years under kind treatment. Hell fire is a few degrees 
warmer than the common fire, and is heated with the fuel of 
brimstone, and when you drive your insane from your fireside 
conversations, you sometimes drive them into this hell fire. But 
mark ye, you are not many strides behind them ! What an awful 
wo to hear the sentence read out, Depart, ye game-makers and 
swindlers of, and declaimers against insanity, into this everlast- 
ing flame of fire, from whence there is no return ! 

Since I have been here there have been six deaths out of the 
whole number of inmates — four males and two females — and in 
the meantime about sixteen cures have been performed. The 
healed patients have gone home, and I am told are doing well. 
Some of them have even gone to healing others, and I am here 
trying to teach you how to heal each other. Others are rapidly 
improving, and will no doubt soon be dismissed from the institu- 
tion. The whole number of patients is from seventy to eighty. 
I noticed that those cases which terminated in death were too far 
gone when brought here to be healed. Perhaps if they had been 
brought here by their friends in time, they might have been hea- 
led and been useful members of society for years to come. 

As to sex, insanity more frequently occurs with females than 



46 INSANITY. 

males — for which cause I can only account from the fact that the fe- 
males is the weaker vessel. At any rate, they are more subject to 
become excited and suffer their passsions to control their better 
judgment. My views are founded on general observation. "When 
insanity occurs in females it is more frequently with married wo- 
men,which might be termed puerperal,or a form of mental derange- 
ment incident to women soon after child-birth. Symptoms of insani- 
ty often display themselves during pregnancy, and under circum- 
stances which indicate that theyare dependent on that state. These 
cases are rare in comparison to those which occur after delivery. 

Many females likewise become deranged during the advanced 
period of lactation, especially those of irritable temperament, 
and such as undertake to suckle their children too long in refer- 
ence to their constitutions. Cases of puerperal madness, pro- 
perly so termed, or that coming on after child-birth, are by no 
means unfrequent. There is no peculiarity in the phenomena of 
puerperal madness by which this disease is distinguished from 
other examples of insanity. Those cases which are more proper- 
ly termed puerperal, as occurring in the first period after child- 
birth, are generally of the character of mania, attended with ex- 
citement of the feelings and mental derangement, while the dis- 
order which displays itself in women exhausted by suckling is 
most commonly connected with melancholy depression; a tenden- 
cy to which may be generally perceived in females who nurse 
their children too long with regard to their strength of constitu- 
tions. Cases of the former description occur within a short 
period, and most frequently from twelve to fifteen days after de- 
livery. They appear sometimes to be occasioned by fright or 
other accidental causes of disturbance; sometimes by error in 
diet or by premature exertion or excitement. In other instances 
they take place independently of any discern ably cause. The patient 
passes two or three restless nights — appears to be unusually ex- 
cited and irritable — talks loudly and incessantly, and very soon 
betrays a disturbed intellect. The attack is often attended with 
febrile. Symptoms of mania are not uncommon in the course of 
the month, but of that species from which they generally recover. 
When out of their senses and attended with fever, they will in all 
probability die, but when without fever it is not fatal. 

Puerperal madness terminates, in a great proporsion, either 
in death or in recovery. Few, comparatively speaking, become 
cases of insanity. The question, on the solution of which there 
is the greatest reason for anxiety in reference to any particular 
case of puerperal madness, is whether it is likely to be fatal; be- 
cause, if not fatal, there is great probability of ultimate recovery. 
The most satisfactory way of coming to a conclusion on this en- 
quiry in any individual case, is b}^ the prognostications which 
the particular symptoms afford, and on this subject I can add but 
little to what has already been said. 



DETECTION. 47 

The principal cause which endangers life in cases of this de- 
scription arises from extreme debility. The excitement of the 
muscular as well as the cerebral functions is so great as to wear 
out the strength already at a low ebb, and being neither recruited 
by nutrition or by sleep, the patient sinks from exhaustion. Ex- 
perience has proved that a rapid circulation is the principal cir- 
cumstance which tends to bring on this state; a very frequent 
pulse is the most unfavorable symptom. Long continued resist- 
ance to sleep and a state of complete stupor, with the appearance 
of great weakness and exhaustion, likewise give reasons for ap- 
prehension. If these signs are not found, the mental derange- 
ment need not give occasion of very serious alarm. The result 
seems to be that the disease is more frequently a consequence 
of delivery than suckling. 

In the meanwhile it appears evident that some cause more m 
its influence than one particular process must be referred to, if we 
Would explain the frequent occurrance in pregnant, puerperal 
and suckling females. The only attempt to explain the theory 
which deserves much consideration, is, I am inclined to consider, 
the puerperal mania as a case of conversation from, during gesta- 
tion and after delivery. When the milk begins to flow, the 
balance of the circulation is so greatly disturbed as to be liable 
to much disorder from the application of any existing cause. If, 
therefore, cold, affecting violent noises, want of sleep, or uneasy 
thoughts distress a puerperal patient before a determination of 
milk to the breasts is regularly made, the impetus may be regu- 
larly converted to the head and produce either hysteria or in- 
sanity, according to its force and the nature of the occasional 
cause. That new determinations in the vascular system should 
ensure on the removal of one so long subsisting as that to the 
uterus during pregnancy, is in accordance with a well ascer- 
tained principle in pathology. The natural and healthy deter- 
mination under these circumstances is to the lacteal glands, but 
owing to various causes, either external or of predisposition, mor- 
bid determinations occasionally take place. Some women be- 
come phthisical at a very early period after child-birth, or rather 
the symptoms of phthisic develope themselves at that time in a 
manifest form. Other constitutional complaints are apt to arise 
at the same period, according to the prevalent tendency of the 
habit. Where the brain is susceptible it is likely to suffer in its 
turn and become the seat of local disorder. The manifestations 
are affecting of the mind. If we consider the frequent changes 
of disturbances occurring in the balance of the circulation from 
the varying and quickly succeeding processes which are carried 
on in the system during and soon after the period of pregnancy 
and child-birth, we shall be at no loss to discover circumstances 
under which a susceptible constitution is likely to suffer. 

The conversions are successive in the temporal or local deter- 



48 INSANITY. 

ruinations of blood which the constitution under such circumstan- 
ces sustains and requires, and appear sufficiently to account for 
the morbid susceptibility of the brain. The cases of mental dis- 
order which occur in the latter periods of lactation are evidently 
of two kinds. In one the disease supervenes on weaning, and pro- 
bably has its origin in the subsidence of the lacteal secretion. — 
There are other instances which appear to arise from the con- 
tinual excitement and exhaustion of the system consequent on 
sucking. This state of exhaustion takes place at different periods 
in different constitutions. Some women can continue to give 
milk without injury for years, but by others morbid feelings are 
experienced in the space of a few months, and do not subside 
for some time after weaning. I have observed some instances, 
of melancholy dejection with symptoms of insanity more or less 
strongly marked, which have displayed themselves in the pro- 
tracted period of nursing, and in females who were evidently 
suffering from exhaustion. 

It will be evident that our chief endeavors must be directed 
to the present support of life. If we can maintain and restore 
the general health and keep the natural functions in a state com- 
patible with continued existence for a time, the disease of the 
animal system will in all probability subside. Evacuent reme- 
dies must be used very sparingly and with great caution. The 
most efficient medical aid in your reach should be applied to in 
such cases. Blood letting as a general remedy for puerperal 
madness or mania, and also in those cases which more resemble 
delirium tremens, is seldom or never necessary, but generally per- 
nicious. I do not say that cases never occur which require this 
remedy, but I would lay down this rule for the employment of the 
lancet — not to use it as a remedy of disorder in the mind unless 
that is accompanied by symptoms of congestion or inflammation 
of the brain. Local is safer than general in the real inflammatory 
diseases of the brain — such as would lead to its employment 
though the mind was not disordered. Even here, however, great 
caution is necessary. Blood letting, of course, is essentially ne- 
cessary, asNieretofore mentioned — but these, I think, can never 
be mistaken for puerperal insanity. They are febrile head- 
aches — more or less acute pain of the head, which is a much bet- 
ter indication for blood letting than disorder of the mind without 
these symptoms. In cases attended with much heat about the 
scalp, flowing of the face, and strong pulsation of the temporal 
and carotid, it will be proper to shave the head and keep it cool 
by means of cold lotions or an oil skin cap filled with iced or ice 
water, as heretofore laid down under the head of treatment of 
insanity in general, or by evaporating lotions, if the symptoms 
above mentioned are very acute, and the debility of the patient is 
not alarming. 

A few leeches may be applied; blisters to the occiput or nape 



TREATMENT. 49 

of the neck, are often serviceble ; when the scalp is not hot and the 
tendency of the disease is rather to stupor than to a high degree 
of excitement, blisters are usefully applied on the top of the head ; 
heat should be applied in the most convenient form ; the lower ex- 
tremities which are often cold, should be immersed frequently in 
hot water, or bathe the feet and legs in a warm infusion of mustard 
or horse radish, and the circulation assisted by the heat in the other 
extremities by the most obvious means. The cold shower baths 
should not be used in cases of puerperal madness or mania, but ap- 
ply, at intervals, cloths wet in cold water to the forehead. 

Purgatives and emetics are among the most useful remedies in this 
disease. The alimentary canal is frequently in a disordered state — 
the tongue furred, the breath feted, the skin discolored and the 
evacuations dark and offensive. A few brisk purgative doses of 
calomel, followed by castor oil or rhubarb and magnesia, should be 
given in such cases. Emetics of epicachuana, with small doses of 
tartarized antimony, are very valuable remedies in this state of the 
alimentary canal; but they should be used with caution when the 
face is pale, the skin cold and pulse quick and weak. Epicachuana is 
preferable to antimonials. After these evacuant remedies have 
been premised, great advantage may be derived from the use of 
opiates. Full doses will be generally attended with the best success. 
Ten grains of Dover's powders may be given at night, or a grain 
and a half of solid opium, or thirty drops of the tincture, or Bat- 
tley's solution of opium in preference to the tincture. Perhaps the 
acetate and muriate of morphea are the best preparations of opium. 
They may be given in doses of an eighth to a quarter of a grain, 
and repeat every third or fourth hour until sleep is produced. — 
When the opiates disagree, hyosycomus mixed with camphor (five 
grains of each) should be given every hour, and a double dose at 
night ; a drachm of the tincture will answer the same purpose. I 
am, however, of the opinion that narcotics are the most valuable 
remedies ; they often produce nights of better sleep and days of 
greater tranquility, and this calmness is followed by some clearing 
up of the disorder of the mind. If, however, heat is in the head, 
and flushing in the face, their use ought to be postponed until such 
symptoms shall have been removed. In the more protracted cases 
of puerperal mania, tonics and stimulent medicines are sometimes 
requisite, especially when the appetite has failed. Ammonia is quite 
recommendable — it may be given with an infusion of Peruvian 
bark or any bitter infusion. When it is not offensive to the sto- 
mach the rectified oil of turpentine is one of the best stimulents, 
especially if it be taken in a dose of a drachm three times a day 
with cinnamon water or any other aromatic fluid. 

A rule of great importance refers to the diet of women in puer- 
peral insanity. It may perhaps be safely asserted that the greatest 
risk with patients in this disease is that of being starved through 
the mistaken notions of their attendants, who are too often disposed 



50 



INSANITY. 



to consider the excitement of maniacal disease as a reason for with- 
holding food, when this very state, owing to the exhaustion produced 
by its long continuance, renders it especially necessary to support 
the strength more carefully. Farinacious fluids of a nutritious kind, 
milk, rice, and other such matters at short intervals, when febrile 
symptoms preclude the use of animal food. In most instances 
broth may be allowed and ought to be given. In the more pro- 
tracted periods solid meat with ale should be given. 

Maniacal patients, laboring under great weakness and exhauston, 
with cold extremities, a clammy skin, passing restless and sleepless 
nights, and under continual agitation, begin to improve as soon as 
their diet is changed ; and when meat with some ale or porter is 
given, the pulse will become fuller and less frequent, the extremities, 
warm, sleep will be restored, and convalescence will take place in 
a surprisingly short time after such a system has been adopted. 

The last observation to be made refers to the management of such 
patients. We must here advert to the remarks to be found in for- 
mer pages on the management and treatment oi insane patients in 
general. The general rules only require modification in some par- 
ticulars in relation to puerperal women ; they require in other re- 
spects similar treatment. They should be separated from their re- 
lations and carefully attended to by persons who are fitted for the 
occupation by profession or habit. It is not so often necessary to 
send puerperal maniacs to lunatic asylums as deranged persons of a 
different description. I think it unnecessary to add any thing more 
upon the treatment, only to cite the reader from one to the other on 
treatment of insanity in general and puerperal insanity. 

Some men who labor under this awful malady fall dead in their 
tracks, without making use of any weapons by which they might 
put an end to their existence. The usual course is to bury them. 
In nine cases out of every ten you bury a living soul. If you would 
spring to them with medical aid and treat them kindly, you might 
bring them to, and they might live for several years in a state of in- 
sanity under kind treatment, and tell you of a great many things 
that you never thought or heard of before. The man who labors 
under insanity and falls dead in his tracks apparently to the by- 
standers, is not really dead ; he is dead for a time, and insensible of 
every thing that is going on while in this condition. 

In giving a Description of Insanity we will first give that of moral 
insanity. 

1. Moral insanity, or madness consisting in morbid perversion of 
the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral 
disposition and natural impulses, without any remarkable disorder 
or defect of the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties, and 
particularly without any insane illusion or hallucination. 

The three following modifications of the disease may be termed 
intellectual insanity, in contradistinction to the preceding form: 

1. Monomania, or partial insanity, in which the understanding 



TREATMENT. 5l 

is partially deranged or under the influence of some particular illu- 
sion, referring to one subject and involving one train of ideas, while 
the intellectual powers appear, when exercised on the subject, to be 
in a great measure unimpaired. 

2. Mania, or raving madness, in which the understanding is gen- 
erally deranged. The reasoning faculty is not lost, but is confused 
and disturbed in its exercise. The mind is in a state of morbid ex- 
citement, and the individual talks absurdly on every subject to which 
his thoughts are momentarily directed. 

3. Incoherence or Dementia. By some persons it may bethought 
scarcely correct to term this a form of insanity, as it has been gen- 
erally considered as a result and sequel of that disease. In some in- 
stances, however, mental derangement has nearly this character 
from the commencement, or at least assumes it at a very early 
period. I am, therefore, justified in stating it to be a distinct form 
of madness. Its features are, rapid succession or interrupted alter- 
nation of insulated ideas, repeated acts of extravagance, complete 
forgetfulness to every previous occurrence, diminishing sensibility to 
external impressions, abolition of the faculty of judgment, perpetual 
activity. 

The division of the forms of insanity pointed out in the preceding 
description, is the most simple that is admissible or adopted to the 
existing varieties of the disease. It is entirely practical. The dis- 
orders of the mind are limited in number and kind by the diversities 
which exist in the operations of the mental faculties. The mental 
operations are of three distinct kinds, and are referred, on the testi- 
mony of consciousness, to three different departments in our inward 
nature, viz: To those of the feeling or sentiment, the understanding 
and the will ; the emotions — grief, pleasure and the mental processes 
of reflection and contemplation, and the voluntary act of self-de- 
termination, are three kinds of mental phenomena, which, as they 
present themselves to our inward consciousness, are so clearly and 
strongly distinguished from each other that it is impossible to confound 
them if the cause of derangement is in relation to one of these mani- 
festations of mental existence. To one or another it belongs, since 
the mind is e ver occupied with phenomena related to one out of the 
three classes. We have only to enquire to what modification the 
disorder directly refers itself, or whether it affects the feeling, the 
understanding or the will, since one of these has possession of our 
consciousness or is at least predominant at every point of time. — 
Whichever function of the mind happens to be that which is falling 
into disorder, by it the form of insanity is determined. Thus we 
have three classes of mental disease corresponding to the three de- 
partments of our minds. A second distinction is founded on the 
character of disturbance which is experienced — whether it is of the 
nature of exultation or depression, of increased or diminished. 

I shall simply enumerate the principal modifications of the de. 
rangement of the mind,, or of its diseases and defects, accord. 



52 DESCRIPTION. 

ing to the method of Dr. Prichard. I will use his own words : — 

The first division consists, as above stated, in disorders of passion, 
feeling or affection, or moral disposition. This has two forms, viz : 

First form — Exaltation or excessive intensity — undue vehemence 
of feeling — morbid violence of passions and emotions. 

Second form — Depression. 

The Second division consists of disorders affecting the under- 
standing or the intellectual faculties. 

First form: Exaltation — undue intensity of the imagination, pro- 
ducing mental illusions. To this head belong all the varieties of 
mono-mania. 

Second form : Depression — feebleness of conception of ideas and 
imbecility of the understanding. 

The third division comprises disorder of the voluntary powers, or 
of propensities and will. 

First form: Exaltation — violence of will and propensities — toll- 
heit, or madness without lesion of the understanding. 

Second form : Depression — weakness or incapacity of will- 
moral imbecility. 

To these annexed forms the reader will be much aided in defining 
the different causes that produce the disease, as laid down under the 
first head of Insanity. 

Hail, Columbia! my native land! 

Ye free born sons of Columbia, hail! 
In your nearest sister towns I once did stand ; 
• But when misfortunes came my heart did fail. 
Those towns have in them all many noble sons, 

And their fair, superior daughters are not a fewj 
But^the sons of Palestine were once my choice bi others, 

They became quite wrathy when I was compelled to sue. 

If wrong to them I have done, 

They'll pray forgive them all or none. 

Their wrongs to me I have forgiven, 

And I am willing they should get to Heaven. 

When by the plough I did thrive, 

I would either hold or drive; 

"When it I did lay aside and went to cutting tape, 

That day's work wrought up for me my eternal fate. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



Insanity is sometimes termed lunacy, from the fact of the disease 
being accompanied with fits of epilepsy (as heretofore mentioned) 
every four weeks, or change of the moon (Luna.) Insane people 
are sometimes termed lunatics from the fact that they are inmates of 
a lunatic asylum. Again, they are occasionally termed lunatics when 
the disease is accompanied with raving madness. There are va- 
rious terms for it, but all diseases of the mind might be justly termed 
insanity and idiocy. Some persons hold it to be the duty of their 
neighbors to take care of their insane ; but that is not their duty. 
They can see the duty of other persons in such cases, but cannot 
see their own. It is equally binding upon every man and woman 
to take care of the insane offspring of their bodies. If I was blessed 
with proper reflecting mental faculties and bodily health, there is 
not a man on the face of God's earth that should outstrip me in ta- 
king care of an insane son, brother or relation. I would have them 
healed, taught and taken care of, or I would work day and night 
and live upon bread and water rather than see my insane suffer. — 
It is no difference whether it be male or female — it should be your 
first duty to provide for the wants of your insane. 

Some persons stand opposed to pronounce their relatives insane, 
rendering- as an excuse that they might receive thereby a stain upon 
their characters. That is not really the cause. The great secret is, 
they fear that their afflicted relatives might eat a little of their meat 
and bread, wear some clothing, or that a medical bill might have to 
be paid. If you cannot account for all those duties towards your 
insane in this life, you cannot account for yourselves or them in the 
life to come. It is expected of every family to account for their 
own insane in some way or other. It is also the duty of the min- 
isters of the Gospel to attend to those things — to see if there be 
any such persons in the bounds of their station, circuit or location, 
and deal with them as stewards of the Lord, that they may be 
ready to account for their stewardship as faithful servants of the 
Most High at his coming. Judges of courts are held equally re- 
sponsible, together with acting justices of the ^peace, sheriffs, con- 
stables and coroners. Medical men are held awfully responsible ; 
they offer their services to the public as healers of all diseases that 



54 GENERAL REMARKS. 

befalls the lot of man. There are, perhaps, some of the community 
in some parts of this State, from the prejudice heretofore cherished 
in their hearts against me, may use their influence against this work 
and try to crush it to the earth. I will just request the reader, if 
they should take this stand, to ask them if they could walk one 
hundred yards or ride three or four miles, in 1839, and pronounce 
their patient (the writer) insane, and treat him according to the 
rules heretofore laid down under the head of treatment in cases of 
insanity, instead of pouring into my system from thirty to sixty 
grains of calomel at one dose, and thereby destroying my constitu- 
tion and mental faculties, and becoming, indirectly speaking, my 
murderers instead of my healers, and left me sinking under their 
rigid course of treatment, for which I paid them about one hundred 
and fifty dollars. They, however, in the mean time, rendered some 
medical services to my family. By pursuing the former course they 
could have healed me — but the reader will remember it has been 
six years since 1839. If they should have an insane patient in 1849, 
and they will pursue the course of treatment given in this book, 
they will heal nine cases out of every ten; but if they pursue the 
same rigid course that they did in 1839, they will kill nine out often. 
Farmers, mechanics and others who have not made the subject of in- 
sanity their study , if they should be at a loss to know whether they should 
be governed by the rules herein laid down in cases of insanity, I would 
ask them to refer (o a real medical man, and be certain that he is a 
real medical man before they are governed by his opinion, There 
may be some objections raised upon the ground that the author is a 
suicide. This rigid course of maltreatment was the forerunner of 
suicide. Down, down, down with a rigid course of treatment and 
abusive language, and up, up, up with kind treatment and mild 
means in cases of insanity. The latter course must prevail if the 
mental powers are restored. 1 do not allude, in this remark, to the 
management in lunatic asylums, for they know how to treat their 
patients — but I drop it for the benefit of those who are not blessed 
with those institutions and who undertake to heal their friends at 
home. To treat a case of insanity is not to treat it with ardent 
spirits, for accursed is he that turneth up the bottle to his neighbor's 
mouth, but it is to have it healed. 

Some men are very tenacious, as above stated, with regard to 
their own characters, and stand opposed to pronouncing their friends 
insane, lest it might injure their characters among their neighbors. 
I will just remark that if it injures a man's character to take care 
of his insane, I would not have the character that such neighbors 
would give me ; they could not run after me fast enough to give me 
a character; and if they should give it to me I would give it back; 
therefore they would lose nothing by the gift. 

Some men look upon it as a credit to cheat and defraud insanity 
and even sit around the corners of business houses watching for an 



GENERAL REMARKS. 55 

opportunity to catch the unfortunate subject off his guard or absent 
from his friends, that they may gore him deep; and when they have 
cheated and defrauded him out of a large plantation, a large lot of 
money, a fine negro fellow, a fine lot of goods, a fine horse, or shaved 
a valuable lot of claims at from twenty to thirty per centum dis- 
count, when the unfortunate subject does not know the value of a 
dollar, they think they have done something very great; they 
laugh in their sleeves, but mark ye, it will take to itself wings and 
leave them. Ill-gotten fame or wealth will take ils flight from any 
man in the course of time, and they will have to pay dearly for it 
in the world to come ; they will have to pay up the utmost farthing. 
You evade the laws of your country in such cases, but when you 
come to the law of God it swings you up. I believe it would be 
just for the Legislatures of the different States to enact a law to 
make it a penitentiary offence for a sane man to wilfully and know- 
ingly cheat and defraud insanity — just as if he had stolen that 
amount. It should also be a criminal offence for a quack Doctor to 
maltreat his insane patient. A man's life is worth more to him than 
all the money in the world, and if his physician should poison him to 
death with great gorges of medicine, as if he was physicing a horse, 
he should be made to suffer in the same way and manner as though 
he had plunged a dagger to his heart. 

I will here give an anecdote that once occurred in a city between 
a physician and a stone-cutter. The doctor was accustomed to 
pass through the street that led by the stone-cutter's shop to visit 
his patients. In passing one morning in a great hurry, he accosted 
the stone-cutter as he was busily engaged in cutting letters on a 
tomb-stone. "Well, sir," said the doctor, "I suppose you cut the 
letters on the stone until you get to the words 'in memory of,' and 
then wait and see who dies before you cut the balance." 

"Yes, sir," replied the stone-cutter, "except with your patients ; 
with them I go right on, for I know a tomtvstone will be shortly 
required." 

This would be applicable to the medical man who pursues a rigid 
course of maltreatment and administers from fifty to an hundred 
grains of calomel to his insane patient in twenty -four hours. In 
such cases the stone-cutter, cabinet maker and sexton may all go 
right on, for the poor patient will be laid in his grave in a very short 
time. 

The mind is composed of five different attributes, to wit, the five 
senses — seeing, hearing, smelling, taste and feeling ; and if you lose 
the use of one of the members of your mind, they all being com- 
bined or united, it will affect a second to a greater or less degree ; 
but upon restoring the first attribute by kind treatment, a cure 
would be very easily performed by a careful physician and kind nurse. 
Thus you might prevent the contagion from extending to the se- 
cond, but if you neglect to make an effort to restore the first, the 
disease will, as a matter of course, extend to the second and third 



56 GENERAL REMARKS. 

attribute, and perhaps inhale in its progress other diseases or assume 
a different character, and will thus extend to the fourth, and will 
continue its ravages until it reaches or terminates in the last attri- 
bute. At this juncture it would be impossible to restore either of 
the attributes, and the whole mind of man becomes morbid and in- 
capable of self-government— the contagion spreads throughout the 
whole system and may extend to the brain and produce mania or ra- 
ving madness, and in all probability terminate in death; all of which 
might be prevented by treating the unfortunate subject as insane. 

Some of the finest talent in the world may be found in members 
of insane institutions. For a time their talent becomes impaired 
from some one or more of the causes laid down under the first head 
of insanity, and their friends discover it and take them to an asylum 
to be healed; and it is not an unfrequent occurrence that they re- 
cover from the disease and return home and make the most brilliant 
men-in the world. If a man, in the hurry of business, happens to 
commit some unintentional errors and his mind becomes perplexed, 
and his friends become alarmed, fearing they may lose their debts, 
refusing to give him time to correct those errors, (as was the au- 
thor's case) he looks upon it as a disgrace to be imprisoned or 
threatened with imprisonment, if he has been *in good standing in 
society or living in the favor of, and in peace and harmony with 
his friends. If they begin to abuse him and drop off from him he 
notices it all the time, and it produces unpleasant feelings for them 
to make those threats of punishment; but if he is insane he does not 
look upon it as a disgrace to be led kindly by his friends to a respect- 
able healing institution, but on the contrary, he takes it as a special 
favor. When your friend becomes insane, show your God what 
you are, and never mind what the world may say against it. The 
soul that is insane cannot help it — he would like very much to be 
sane. Some people will have it in such cases that they could avoid 
being insane, and that they are not in that state, but only think so. 
I reckon if one of those persons was to think himself insane, he 
would be very willing to be led to this institution to be healed. 
You would come along very kindly. Do you suppose the young 
man in the tombs cutting himself with stones could avoid his con- 
dition, or that he could have healed himself? It is just as reasona- 
ble to suppose that as it is to suppose that the man who is insane 
can avoid his condition or heal himself. Suppose you were taken 
suddenly sick with nervous or congestive fever — could you prevent 
it? 1 guess not — but perhaps you might be healed. Insanity is 
likewise a disease, but more violent and painful, and if you were to 
become afflicted with this awful malady you might be healed of it 
also. It requires a little more time and care than a case of fever. 

Some families wait for their friends to come and tell them that 
their relatives are insane and get on their knees and ask their friends 
to take care of them, and if they happen to be possessed of too 
high a mind to pursue this course, God pity their condition, for in 



GENERAL REMARKS. 57 

many instances their friends will have no mercy on them. The in- 
sane are quite high-minded — they even sometimes imagine them- 
selves kings and favorites of heaven. 

The man that steps up to you and says, "Sir, I am an insane 
man," is one who only thinks himself insane. He may tell you by 
citing the condition of other men who are pronounced insane and 
treated as such, and ask you to say yourself, citing you at the same 
time, to their own condition or to an insane institution, and ask you 
for a friend. But they will never tell in plain words until they be- 
come in a similar condition with the writer; then they will acknowl- 
edge themselves insane. It is a hard word for a man to cry out 
upon himself. He expects his friends to cry that word for him. A 
boy may speak it, but a man don't like to confess himself inferior in 
point of talent or honor to his fellow man. I have noticed all my life 
that a man's friends get en tirely too smart in such cases long before the 
right time; but when the time comes for them to act and show what 
they should do, they are never smart enough. It is every body's 
business — and I have heard it said, what is every body's business is 
no body's business. Every man is in action and no man acts right 
— if they do, it is a rare occurrence. A majority of people pro- 
fess to be perfect judges of insanity, and there is not one out of 
every hundred that can define it, and perhaps it would not be ex- 
travagant to say one out of every thousand. 

If" a man's friends will set themselves up as judges, they certainly 
should be very sure that they do not judge amiss; and if they are 
not capable of judging they should not set themselves up as judges. 
What kind of feeling would the reader suppose it would put upon a 
man to hear that a certain other man in the circle of his acquaint- 
ance had become insane, and to see the relations and friends of that 
man mount their horses and lope off to his house and not abuse or 
seek any advantage or suffer any one else to do it until he gets well; 
and he knows himself to be the most insane man on the face of 
God's earth, and that his relatives and friends have a good right to 
know it too, and he also knows them to be under equal obligations 
towards him as that of the other man's friends, and he sees them 
mount their horses and strike off to hunting up and circulating re- 
ports on him, and gallop up to his house and abuse him, and go off 
to boast that they have given him a good lecturing, is it reasonable 
to suppose that this conduct could possibly create any good feel- 
ing? If you do suppose such a thing, you are very much mistaken 
in your suppositions. It creates an unpleasant feeling in his mind 
and breast towards his friends, and causes him to lose confidence in 
himself and them. In some instances they require a longer time to 
treat a case of insanity in their families 'than others, fearing that 
they might act in too much haste. You cannot act in too much 
haste in such cases if you act with caution and discretion. Time 
is money, therefore it is best to make use of it as it glides on. If 
your friend becomes insane you cannot get to him too soon, if you 



5S GENERAL REMARKS. 

approach him in a proper manner. Some families have to go out 
and ask the people what their duty is towards their insane, and 
while they are making such enquiries perhaps their insane may com- 
mit suicide. Head this book and it will teach you your duty. It 
does no good to pronounce a man insane unless you act upon his 
condition. For one man to say, "there stands an insane man," and 
a second to say, "well, let him stand — no one cares," does not heal 
insanity. It requires action in such cases. I could get no man to 
act upon my condition, either for love or money, until it was forever 
too late. I have tried at least one thousand men upon the subject, 
and in a thousand different ways for action, but they invariably took 
the wrong view of it and began to make game and abuse, which 
only adds fuel to the fire. It is passingly strange that a man's friends 
and relatives have no more feeling than to abuse him when he is sick 
and deranged. You do not know but what you may now have a 
son or a daughter that is deranged; it would not be amiss to investi- 
gate it closely; and if it proves to be the case, be very certain to 
take care of that one and treat it kindly, and I will insure that will 
give you a character in the estimation of gentlemen; you will be 
spiritually rewarded both in time and eternity. 

Some men may say that they have no use for this book, upon the 
ground that they have no insane in their families. My friends and 
relatives always held that they had no insane, but they found them- 
selves awfully mistaken. Suppose you have no insane now — per- 
haps you or some of your family might become insane, and then you 
would find use for a book that would teach you what to do with 
them. Buy while they are going, lest you might wish you had one 
when you need it. 

I have heard it said that during my trip to New Orleans (hereto- 
fore mentioned) a letter was received by the Methodist Church, of 
which I was a member, stating that if I remained a member of said 
Church it would not prosper. If it be any satisfaction to the Church 
to know the truth, I wrote no such letter; and if a letter of any 
description was received by said Church over my name, it was a 
forgery, both writing and signature. This is not the first forgery 
that was ever committed by using my name, by several. I remem- 
ber it was used quite freely during the winter of 1838-9, to notes 
given for a large drove of hogs, bought by G. T. & Co., of which 
partnership I was not a member; neither did I have any part or lot 
in the profits or loss of said purchase, except in taking the paper of said 
concern in discount of debts due Mr. X — — and myself, which ope- 
ration I stood opposed to, (for I knew the concern to be insolvent,) 
and by which I sustained a loss of several thousand dollars. I never 
authorized any of their agents to use my name to the notes, either 
verbally or by writing; and I wrote no letter during said trip to New 
Orleans, to the Church or to any person except to three individuals 
on business in which they were interested. 

The heart is the seat of life — from it flows throughout the whole 



GENERAL REMARKS. 59 

system a circulation of blood, even to the extremities of the fingers 
and toes — from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot — cir- 
culating from the heart, through the veins and arteries, and then 
returning to the heart and re-circulating again and again; and if the 
seat of life, which is the heart, becomes sick, the head becomes sick 
also, and thus the whole system becomes sick. When the seat of 
life dies, the balance cannot survive long — it is bound to follow soon 
after, in some way or other: but when the head and heart becomes 
sick they may be healed, and thus prevent the other members of 
the body from receiving the contagion, and, instead of terminating 
in death, the man may live many years. You may break the heart 
of a lion or an ox if you treat them as I was once treated, much less 
the heart of a man. 

Insanity is never out of danger, neither does it know when it is 
in danger. Some people watch their insane very close until about 
the time they think they are about to destroy themselves, and then 
they quit watching. It is nice to watch an insane man — it only 
makes them worse to watch them; take them into your houses and 
treat them kindly, or bring them here where they can be healed. — 
Some people don't care no more what becomes of their insane than 
they do for a dumb brute, and not so much, for they will take 
care of a dumb brute and they won't take care of their insane. It 
is sometimes the case that one kind word saves a man's life. Time 
things are time things, and eternal things are eternal things; time 
things may be changed — time things may be rectified if a man's 
friends will give him time to rectify them, but eternal things cannot. 

O, thou that stoneth the prophets and killeth them that I sent un- 
to thee, how oft would I have gathered you together as a hen 
gathereth her brood under her wings, and unfolded these mysteries 
unto you, and ye would not, eyes ye had and ye would not see, 
ears ye had and ye would not hear. Eyes I had and I did see, ears 
I had and I could not hear. 

When you step up to an insane man and abuse him you are en- 
tirely out of business; you have got nothing else in the world to do, 
and you may get yourself into business by it, and a very bad busi- 
ness. 

Gentlemen and ladies in high stations, 
Will you look down upon the insane and idiot 

With contempt? You and your great relations 
Might all become maniacs and idiots. 

Will you turn to them a deaf ear, 

Or will you raise your voice for them in prayer, 

That God may restore their minds and bless you every year, 
And lead them from the dangerous snare? 

They are of the same dust and fellow being, 

Your conduct towards them is marked down 
By the eyes of Him who is always seeing; 

He expects you in your duty to be found. 



60 GENERAL REMARKS. 

If you should mistreat them and show disrespect, 
Slim would be your chance for heaven; 

Therefore you had better them protect, 
That you and them may be pure leaven. 

Thus you might wear fine laurels, 

And meet them in peace beyond Jordan's stormy banks, 
Where never enter jars or quarrels; 

Where you would win crowns, golden harps and thanks. 



IDIOTISM. 



Idiotism is a state in which the mental faculties have been wanting 
from birth, or have not been manifested at the period at which they 
are generally or usually developed. Idiotism is an original defect, 
and is by this circumstance, as well as by its phenomena, distinguished 
from that fatuity which results from disease or from protracted acre. 
The latter is dementia, and it is important that this affection should 
not be confounded with idiotism. 1 will point out the distinction 
between idiotism and original deficiency of understanding. It is 
divided into two stages or degrees, viz: absolute idiotism and the con- 
dition approaching to idiotism, which last is denominated imbecili- 
ty. Imbecility is a state in which the intellectual faculties are not 
wholly deficient, though manifested in a lower degree than accord- 
ing to the ordinary standard. 

Idiotism, however, is not the same in all instances. It differs in 
particular cases and has a variety of forms. One of the most strong- 
ly marked of these is termed cretonism, a species of idiotism connected 
with personal deformity. Says Prichard, Cretons often show in their 
earliest infancy what they are destined to become. They have 
sometimes, in their first years, a puffed, swollen countenance: their 
hands and heads are large and out of proportion to the rest of their 
bodies; they evince insensibility to atmospheric impressions; an habit- 
ual state of stupor and sloth; difficulty in sucking, as if through weak- 
ness of instinct connected even with the first wants; very slow and 
imperfect development of the faculty of articulating sounds after they 
are only capable of learning to pronounce vowels without conso- 
nants; they even display more and more clumsiness and stupidity in 
all their movements. The same deficiency or absence of intelligence 
continues to the age of ten or twelve years. Cretons of that age are 
frequently unable to take food into their mouths and masticate it, so 
that it is even necessary to put their aliment down their throats. — 
As they grow up they still walk with an awkward and tottering gait 
when they can be induced to move at all. They have never a 
cheerful countenance, are always stupidly obstinate, with a resisting, 
mutinous temper; they show a disproportioned smallness of head in 
relation to their bodies ; their heads are flattened, and the tuberosi- 
ty of the occiput is less projecting than is natural; their eyes are 
small, sometimes deeply sunk, at others prominent; their look fixed 



62 IDIOTISM. 

and stupid, chests flat, fingers thin and long, the soles of their feet, 
flat and sometimes bent, and often turned inwards or outwards; ob- 
scene and erotic propensities. They do not walk about much, and 
only excited by a desire to get food or warm themselves by the fire 
or in the rays of the sun ; his litter is his longest and most fatiguing 
journey, and to it he comes tottering and reeling about. In seeking 
his object he goes forward without shuning dangers or obstacles ; 
he can take no other road than the one most familiar. Their organs 
of sense are imperfect ; they see imperfectly, are deaf or hard of 
hearing, dumb or mumbling and lisping in their speech : their taste 
and smell are also imperfect, and they eat without selection of food. 
Their reflecting faculties are still more imperfect than their powers 
of sensation; they are incapable of directing their attention to any- 
thing; though sensations take place through the organs of sight or 
hearing, they are scarcely followed by any perception of objects. 
Many idiots have even the instinctive faculties in a detective state, 
and appear to be far below the brutes in the scale of animal exist- 
ence, for brute animals have in perfection all those impulses to action 
which are necessary for their individual well-being and that of 
their tribe. 

Idiots, however, have their bodily appetites and sexual desires ; 
they are likewise subject to anger and rage. There are some who 
display faint glimmerings of intelligence; their attention is some- 
times excited by impressions made upon their senses ; they appear 
to look upon certain objects with a sentiment of pleasure mixed 
with curiosity. 

Esquirol gives an account of a woman twenty-two years of age, 
who was admitted at the Salpetriere in 1812. Her mother, while 
pregnant, experienced certain severe trials, and the subject had a 
feeble and sickly infancy, and learned to walk at a very late 
period. When five years of age she suffered from a severe illness, 
resulting, it was supposed, from a fright. Since that period the pro- 
gress of intelligence has ceased, although the organs are well de- 
veloped. Her stature is above the medium size, her step easy, slow, 
and somewhat haughty ; her hair of a chesnut color, her forehead 
high, eyes blue, face flushed, chin small and sharp, teeth white and 
well arranged, the occiput well developed, the physiognomy mild 
and friendly, skin fair and the limbs well formed. The admeasure- 
ment of the head, taken during life, is as follows : 

Circumference, 

Antero posterior diameter, .... 

Bi. temporal diameter, . 

From the curve at the root of the nose to the occi- 
pital tuberosity, . . ' . 

Total, 61.92 " 

The menses appeared at thirteen, and were abundant and regu- 



33.66 

7.87 
6.10 


in. 

a 
a 


14.29 


a 



IDIOTISM. 



63 



lar at fourteen. After that period her disposition became less ami- 
able, and she refused to labor, The sight of men caused the blood 
to mount into her cheeks, and she was accustomed to escape from 
the house of her parents to run about and play with little boys. — 
The intellectual capacity of this imbecile was considerable : she at- 
tended both to what she saw and heard. She had some memory, 
formed a sufficiently accurate judgment respecting the most com- 
mon things, and replied correctly, but in a hesitating tone, to such 
questions as were rarely addressed. In vain they endeavored to 
teach her to read and labor — she would repeat a few letters and 
that was all. She learned how to arrange dolls, and amused herself 
with them. She would dress herself, comb her hair, wash herself, 
make her bed and call for a change of linen. She would go for her 
food, but was unwilling to receive it except in dishes appropriated 
specially to her use ; quite haughty, and disdained her companions ; 
and notwithstanding she was habitually mild, opposition irritated her, 
and she then became perverse and abusive in her language, and 
would strike if made angry. If any one struck her she would return 
their blows with interest. She was excessively obstinate and would 
never yield ; had neither fear nor jealousy, walked much and 
sported with her companions, would caress her mother, of whom she 
was very found, and if long absent she became sad. She would 
accuse her father-in-law, whom she disliked, of treating his other 
children better than herself, and particularly in supplying them 
with better clothing. She was observant of attentions paid to 
her — the sight of men produced a strong impression, and she 
watched for the workmen when permitted to enter the courts of 
the hospital. She never became habituated to continual labor; on 
receiving a new dress she hastened to display herself to her com- 
panions and the domestics of the house. When her portrait was 
taken, in consequence of the regularity in the form of her head and the 
harmony of her features, which contrasted with the feebleness of 
her understanding, she seemed transported with joy. Nevertheless, 
there was much difficulty found in inducing her to keep her seat, 
which she was constantly disposed to leave. It was impossible to 
take a cast of her face, for so soon as she felt the softened plaster 
over her eyes, she would open them. She has often essayed in vain 
to keep her lids closed, and often wept with mortification at her in- 
ability to submit successfully to the operation. Imbeciles are noth- 
ing of themselves — they are incapable of attention. With feeble 
sensations and fugacious, dull of memory and inaccurate, they are 
able to combine and compare, but their will is without energy. — 
They are not always deprived of the power of speech ; a small por- 
tion of them are mutes. They very readily express, by the play of 
their countenance and gestures, their thoughts, desires and wants. 
Nothing is produced by them, and all their movements, both in- 
tellectual and moral, are aroused only by foreign impulses. They 
neither think nor act but through others ; their will is without ener- 



64 IDIOTISM. 

gy ; they cannot follow a conversation, and are still more feeble in a 
discussion, nor can they conduct a project to its close. They re- 
gard the most serious things as gay, and laugh at those that are most 
sad. They hear but do not comprehend, although they affect to 
both see and understand. Their gestures and position are odd, and 
rarely in harmony with what they think or say — are puffed by pre- 
tension, easily led and controlled, and incapable of application and 
labor. There are other imbeciles, however, who possess but a small 
number of sensations and ideas, and have but little memory. Their 
language also is limited, obstinate and peevish. 

Parents and guardians are under equal obligations to the unfor- 
tunate idiot as they are to their insane, except the healing part. I 
conceive it to be impossible to heal idiocy where they are born in 
that condition; theiefore, I think it unnessary to lay down any par- 
ticular rule by which they might be healed. Still, it is your duty to 
reasonably feed and clothe them, and render them as comfortable 
as you can. It might be proper to give a sufficiency of mild medi- 
cine, occasionally, to keep the stomach and bowels in a healthy con- 
dition. They do not usually live to be more than from twenty to 
thirty years of age, and very frequently die at an earlier period, 
especially where they are mistreated, which shortens their lives as 
does maltreatment in cases of insanity. 

LINES TO MY FATHER. 

May God support you in old age, 
And when he takes you from this stage 
May you in Heaven meet my mother, 
And Jesus Christ your elder brother. 

Your youngest son perhaps you'll never see, 
But pray don't think of me; 
When a boy I loved you more 
Than all the sous you had before. 

When you suffered me from your mansions driven, 

As did Noah's dove o'er this wide domain I've striven, 

If wrongs to you I have done, 

Pray forgive them all or none. 

While this I write I can't forbear to weep, 

That I by my country should be sold so cheap, 






JURISPRUDENCE Of INSANITY. 



The chief design of the author of this work has been to convey 
to the reader a correct view of insanity and the manner of treat- 
ment requisite to effect a cure, together with the causes that produce 
the disease and the manner of detecting it. I will now lay down 
what I conceive to be correct views in criminal cases of insanity be- 
fore any particular court of judicature. 

This subject will be readily admitted as one of great importance 
and interest. The life of a fellow being is often dependent upon 
the evidence given in a court of justice. When cases of this kind 
become matters of judicial inquiry, a person ignorant of the charac- 
ter and peculiarities of disordered intellect, of the pathetical condi- 
tion of the human mind, of its strange caprices, of the influence of 
external and internal agents in disordering its manifestations, may 
by his evidence consign a human being, deprived of his reasoning 
faculties, and having no control over his thoughts, and actions, to an 
ignominious and painful death. The judge and jury, never having 
had an opportunity of making the subject of insanity their study, 
must depend principally upon the evidence of medical testimony. Jf 
they, too, have not investigated the subject, how perilous is the 
condition of the unhappy man charged with the commission of a 
capital crime, and held responsible to answer the laws of his country 
and abide the decisions of a court and jury wholly ignorant of the 
disease, and suffer the penalties of the law on account of the execu- 
tors of it being uninformed! It may be urged that it is only the pro- 
vince of the court to state to the jury the law on criminal cases of 
insanity. To do this it is necessary that he should be intimately con- 
versant with the subject and the peculiar characteristics of mental 
derangement. To do justice in such cases it is absolutely necessary 
that not only the medical men examined, but the judge and jury, 
should be well informed upon the subject of insanity. 

The time, I hope, is not far distant, when there will be instituted, 
for the investigation of cases in which it is important to establish the 
existence or non-existence of aberration of mind, a separate juris- 
diction, presided over by persons whose attention has been specially 
directed to the study of mental derangement. Some of the most 
illustrious ornaments of the bench, in cases where insanity may be 
urged as an exculpatory plea, might labor under difficulties unless 



66 JURISPRUDENCE 

well informed upon this particular subject, and thereby, in all prob- 
ability, unintentionally give an erroneous charge to the jury and 
pass an erroneous sentence upon the unfortunate subject, and inflict 
the punishment of an ignominious and torturing death, while at the 
same time it would be the duty of the court, bar and jury to pro- 
tect the unfortunate criminal by extending the benefit of such laws 
as are made and provided in cases of insanity generally — they being 
blessed by an all-wise Creator with proper reasoning faculties and 
bodily health, and their unfortunate fellow being both bodily and 
mentally diseased. 

No man should be considered competent to give an opinion on a 
complicated question as a witness, where insanity may be suspected 
or should be necessary to be investigated for the well being of society 
and that of the unfortunate criminal, unless he has made the disease 
of the mind his study ; and if an attempt should be made to bring 
forward any such testimony, it should be exposed by the bar to the 
laughter of the court. Yet medical knowledge is essentially neces- 
sary for the elucidation of any particular case of insanity, and the 
friends of the subject should as well, as heretofore laid down in the 
treatment of cases of insanity in general, apply to the most efficient 
medical aid in their reach. It might be the case that from some 
previous misunderstanding between the parties, that partialities or 
prejudices might exist in the minds of such witnesses, either in favor 
of or against any particular criminal case of insanity, at which time 
all such feelings should be thrown aside, and perhaps it might be ad- 
visable to throw the testimony aside and procure other med- 
ical testimony with whom the criminal may not have been 
previously acquainted or had no transactions in the differ- 
ent avocations and pursuits of life. Not one of the jury may have 
ever seen a case of insanity nor have given the subject a moment's 
consideration. It would be erroneous to place a dying maniac in the 
dungeon of a county or State prison, and bind him' down with fet- 
ters and chains, thus placing him on a level with thieves, robbers 
and midnight assassins.who would plunge a dagger into the heart of his 
fellow being and usher him into another mode of existence. Such a 
course would go to cause the disease, to further increase its ravages 
and torturing pains, and might cause the disease to prove fatal or 
the subject to commit suicide. The unfortunate subject, knowing 
himself to be insane, looks up to his friends for advice, and when 
they treat him thus he becomes tired of the present and is willing to 
try a future existence. 

In such cases their friends may render as an excuse that they 
were confining them to prevent an escape, about which they need 
not give themselves any uneasy thoughts. There is no danger of 
an insane man trying to make his escape, but on the contrary, their 
friends should go and take them home, or carry them to a lunatic 
asylum where they will betaken good care of and cured, and where 
they will be prevented from destroying themselves or any other 



OP INSANITY. 67 

person. By this course you may preserve life. It is the opinion of 
some persons that none but the lower class of men ever commit 
suicide, and say, let them go — no one cares — it injures none but 
themselves. Such persons are laboring under a mistaken notion. — 
It occurs almost invariably with men who were once in first stand- 
ing in society and in possession of the finest talents in the world, 
and it invariably implicates the highest rank of society. Insanity 
should be held in high estimation by sanity, and is by persons of re- 
flection who know any thing about the disease. 

Relative to the duties enjoined upon judges, counsellors, parents, 
guardians, friends and physicians in reference to any particular crim- 
inal case of insanity, suffice it to say, once for all, that the obligation 
is equally binding towards each and every such case, without regard 
to sex, name or age — there is no exemption. I do not mean, by 
standing opposed to the imprisonment of maniacal criminals in the 
dungeons of a county or State prison, (as sane criminals should be) 
that it would be advisable to suffer them to roam at large over the 
world, subject to be led about by the whims and intrigues of the 
sane thief or midnight assassin, and imperceptibly led to the commis- 
sion of unlawful deeds which, if sane, they could not have been in- 
duced to commit. Thus, through the mistaken notions of a court 
and jury who may not have had an opportunity of becoming ac- 
quainted with the subject of insanity, a poor soul might be inflicted 
with the punishments of the law for doing a deed when not in his 
right mind. If not protected, therefore, by their friends and treated 
by their physicians while in this state of aberration, the unfortu- 
nate subjects are doomed to sink in the estimation of society, and 
are classed in the rank of, and subject to suffer the penalties of the 
law, with the sane villian who may have led them to commit the 
crime ; when, if properly taken care of or sent to a lunatic asylum 
by their friends, in all probability their minds would be restored and 
they become useful men to society. It is nice to even suppose that 
an insane man or woman should know how to procure their own 
counsel when brought before a court for the commission of a crimi- 
nal offence, or even to take care of themselves. 

Deranged persons sometimes imagine themselves surrounded by 
enemies who are seeking their lives, and actually sink under fright 
and fall dead in their tracks, or put an end to their own existence 
with the view of preventing their enemies from gratifying their blood 
thirsty souls in their blood — preferring to take their own lives 
rather than to let their enemies do it. The judge forgets 
to say, in his charge to the jury, that perhaps the criminal at the 
bar is insane, and cite them to the insane institution at which they 
might be healed. The lawyer forgets to say that his client is insane 
and to cite the jury to an insane institution. The jury forget, in 
rendering their verdict, that there is an insane institution. They all 
forget the respectable healing house, but they never forget the pen- 
itentiary and gallows. It is better to err in such cases on the side of 



68 JURISPRUDENCE 

mercy than on the side of severity — it is better to drink the blood 
of an hundred sane men than one insane man, all being guilty of the 
same crime. If a man be guilty of a crime and you arraign him be- 
fore any court of judicature, if he be insane and you swear that he is 
sane, it makes him amenable to the laws of his country for the 
crime he commits, and he is punished with death — the prosecutor 
that prosecuted him, the witness that swore against him, the jury 
that found the verdict, the judge that passed the sentence and the 
sheriff that executed him are all held responsible in the sight of God 
as a band of murderers. You are taking the life of him whom God 
commands you to heal — you are destroying where you should 
protect. 

Acting justices of the peace, sheriffs, constables and coroners are 
sworn to support the constitution of their respective States and of 
the United States, and if a case of insanity occurs in your city, 
town, county or district, and you live wholly in the neglect of treat- 
ing the subject as such, you stand perjured in the sight of God, to- 
gether with all other officers who take the same oath. 

In addition to the plans heretofore laid down for detecting in- 
sanity or homicide, 1 will further lay down the following. They 
are founded on general observation: — 

Acts of homicide perpetrated by insane persons — by other stri- 
king peculiarities of action noted in the conduct of these individuals 
— by a total change of character. 

The same individuals, in many instances, would attempt suicide, 
expressing a wish for death, and they will in some cases even beg to 
be executed as criminals. 

Those acts are without motive; they are in opposition to the 
Inown influences of all human motives. A man murders his wife 
and children who is known to have been tenderly attached to them, 
and a mother destroys her infant. 

The subsequent conduct of the unfortunate individual is generally 
characteristic of his state. He seeks no escape nor flight as would 
the sane villian, but delivers himself up to justice, acknowledges the 
act, describes the state of mind which led to its perpetration, or re- 
mains stupified and overcome by a horrible consciousness of having 
been the agent in an atrocious deed. The murderer has generally 
accomplices in vice and crime — there are assignable inducements 
which lead to its commission — motives of self interest, of revenge, 
displaying wickedness premeditated. The acts of a madman are 
also in some degree premeditated, but his premeditation is peculiar 
and characteristic — with a view of trying to convince his friends of 
his real condition, hoping that he may get them into action upon the 
treatment of his case to prevent suicide or any further destruction. 
There is also a presumption of insanity, where the individual has ei- 
ther been previously insane or affected by epilepsy. I maintain that 
capital punishment has the effect of developing in the minds of ma- 
niacal criminals^ in many instances, a destructive impulse, as well as 



OF INSANITY. 69 

exciting that tendency to imitate which is inherent in every mind. 
The sentence of punishment by death, instead of producing a bene- 
ficial effect with persons laboring under homicidal tendencies, actu- 
ally in many instances stimulates them to the commission of crime. 

1 will cite to the following cases, taken from Prichard: — I. K.,a 
farmer, several of whose relatives had been the subjects of mental 
derangement, was a man of sober and domestic habits, and frugal 
and steady in his conduct until about his forty-fifth year, when his 
disposition appeared to have become suddenly changed in a manner 
which excited the surprise of his friends and neighbors, and occa*- 
sioned grief and vexation in his family. He become wild, excitable, 
thoughtless, full of schemes and absurd projects ; he would set out 
and make long journeys into distant parts of the country to pur- 
chase cattle and farming stock, of which he had no means of dispo- 
sing. He bought a number of carriages, hired an expensive house 
ready furnished, which had been occupied by a person much above 
his rank, and was unsuited to his condition. He was irascible and 
impetuous, quarreled with his neighbors, and committed an assault 
upon the clergymen of his parish, for which he was indicted and 
bound to take his trial. At length his wife became convinced that 
he was mad, and made application for his confinement in a lunatic 
asylum, which was consequently effected. The medical practition- 
ers who examined him were convinced of his insanity by comparing 
his late wild habits and unaccountable conduct with the former tenor 
of his life, taking into consideration the tendency to disease which 
was known to prevail in his family. The change of his character 
alone had produced a full conviction in the minds of his friends and 
relatives of his madness. When questioned as to the motives which 
had induced him to some of his proceedings, he gave clear and dis- 
tinct replies, and assigned, with great ingenuity, some plausible rea- 
son for almost every part of his conduct. 

A. B., a tradesman ot industrious, sober habits, conducted him- 
self with propriety until about forty-six years of age, and had accu- 
mulated a considerable property from the fruits of his exertions. — 
About that period he lost his wife, and after her death he became 
more and more penurious. At length he denied himself the com- 
forts, and, in a great measure, the necessaries of life, and became 
half starved and diseased. His body was emaciated and beset with 
scaly eruptions. Mr. S., a gentleman who had long known him, 
hearing of the condition into which he had sunk, sent a medical prac- 
titioner to visit him, by whose advice Mr. B. was removed from a 
miserable, dirty lodging to a lunatic asylum. Mr. S., who was pre- 
sent on the occasion, observed that A. B., previous to quitting the 
room in which he had immured himself, kept his eyes fixed on an old 
trunk in the corner of the apartment. This was afterwards emptied 
of its contents, and in it weie found, in the midst of various articles* 
dirty bank notes, which had been thrown into it apparently at dif- 
ferent times, to the value of more than a thousand pounds. A. B , 



70 



JURISPRUDENCE 



after his removal to an asylum where he had wholesome food and 
exercise, soon began to recover from his bodily infirmities, and at 
length became anxious to be at large. He betrayed no sign of in- 
tellectual delusion, nor did it appear that anything of that description 
had ever been a part of his complaint. After some months, and 
after various expedients were adopted, it became necessary to bring 
him back to the asylum, with a certificate from a medical man who 
had examined and declared him to be insane. He still remains in the 
asylum, and derangement is now more complete than formerly, as 
it plainly involves his intellect. 

Mr. H. P. had been for many years confined in a lunatic asylum, 
when an estate having devolved upon him by inheritance, it became 
necessary to subject him anew to investigation. He was examined 
by several physicians, who were unanimous in the opinion that he 
was a lunatic, but a jury considered him to be of sound understan- 
ding, attributing his peculiarities to eccentricity, and he was conse- 
quently set at liberty. The conduct of this individual was the most 
eccentric that could be imagined; he scarcely performed any action 
in the same manner as other men, and some of his habits, in which 
he obstinately persisted, were singularly filthy and disgusting. For 
every peculiar custom he had a faint and often ludicrous reason to 
allege, which indicated a strange mixture of rudeness and absurdity. 
It might have been barely possible to attribute all these peculiarities, 
as well as the morbid state of temper and affections, to singularity 
in the natural character and to the peculiar circumstances under 
which this person had been placed; but there was one conviction 
deeply fixed on his mind, which, though it might likewise be ex- 
plained by the circumstances of his previous history, seemed to con- 
stitute an instance of maniacal delusion. Whenever any person 
whom he understood to be a physician attempted to feel his pulse, 
he would recoil with an expression of horror and exclaim, "If you 
were to feel my pulse you would be lord paramount over me for the 
rest of my life." The result has proved that confinement is not 
always necessary in cases of this description. Mr. H. P. has re- 
mained at liberty for many years, and his conduct, though extreme- 
ly singular, has been without injury to himself or others. 

It is a well established fact that masturbation is a prolific cause of 
mental derangement in young subjects. In those cases, although 
the intellect finally suffers deeply and rapidly, yet in its initiatory 
stage the moral and effective may be seriously perverted, while the 
conduct and conversation of the individual may be outwardly 
marked by its usual propriety. Long before any intellectual aber- 
ration is observed, and while the patient is merely moody and re- 
served, his mind may be tortured by fears and suspicions that mar 
his peace and sometimes lead him to acts, of violence. 

Dr. Bell, the accomplished physician of the Meleon Asylum of 
Massachusetts, says that he knew a pious, intelligent student, pursu- 
ing his daily avocations to the satisfaction of his friends and instruc- 



OF INSANITY. 



71 



tors, who nightly slept with a weapon under his pillow to protect 
himself from attack from one whom he had scarcely seen and to whom 
he had never spoken, and when convinced of his delusion by proofs 
so overpowering that his mind was obliged to acknowledge its 
assent, he merely transferred his suspicions to another equally inno- 
cent individual. Had this young man met the object of his sus- 
picions and shot him dead, how few could have been brought to 
believe that he acted under the influence of insanity and was con- 
sequently irresponsible. How feeble would have been any evidence 
of insanity but such as had reference expressly to the particular 
form under which he was laboring. Such a case as this 
should make a strong impression on the mind of the medical jurist. 

The following cases are taken from Winslow's Pleas of Insanity, 
which deserve high consideration. 

An intriguing, vicious, unruly madman was detected with a piece 
of iron, which he had contrived to shape like a dagger, and to which 
he firmly fixed a handle. The weapon was taken away from him, 
when he immediately became excessively abusive, and was placed 
under restraint. After this he was more violent, and uttered the 
most revolting imprecations. In a fit of fury, he exclaimed to the 
keeper, "I'll murder you yet — I am a madman, and they cannot 
hang me for it." 

In 1829 Mr. G. Combe saw a patient who had been confined in 
the Richmond Lunatic Asylum for the period of ten years. He was 
intelligent, ingenious and plausible — he was represented as having 
been a scourge to his family in childhood — had been turned out of 
the army as an incorrigible villian — had attempted the life of a 
soldier — had been repeatedly flogged, and had subsequently endea- 
vored to murder his father. With reference to this case, Dr. Craw- 
ford, physician to the Asylum, makes the following observations: — 
He never was different from what he is now; he has never evinced 
the slightest incoherence on any one point, nor any kind of hallu- 
cination; it is one of those cases which throw a difficulty in drawing 
the line between extreme moral depravity and insanity, and in dis- 
covering at what point an individual should cease to be considered 
as a responsible, moral agent and answerable to the laws. The 
governors and medical gentlemen of the asylum have often had 
doubts whether they were justified in keeping him as a lunatic. 
He appears so totally callous with regard to any moral principle 
and feeling; so thoroughly unconscious of ever having done any thing 
wrong, so completely destitute of all sense of shame or remorse 
when reproved for his vices or crimes, and has proved himself so 
utterly incourigible throughout life, that it is almost certain that any 
jury before whom he might be brought would satisfy their doubts by 
returning him insane to a lunatic asylum, which, in such a case, 
would be the most humane cource to pursue. He was dismissed 
several times from the asylum, and sent there the last time for 
attempting to poison his father, and it is thought best that he should 



72 



JURISPRUDENCE 



be kept there for life as a moral lunatic. But there has never been 
the least symptom of diseased action of the brain, which is the gen- 
eral concomitant of what is usually understood as insanity. 

There have been many cases very similar to that just related for 
the care and protection of which nothing whatever has been done. 
The gallows ends the career of many unfortunate moral maniac. 
Was not Labierse a case of this kind? This man, who is represent- 
ed to have borne a high character, murdered his mistress, two wives 
whom he had successively married, his own son, and was at last ar- 
rested in his criminal course by being detected in stealing a child, 
which he had destined to satisfy his savage appetite. This maniac 
selected the period of parturition for the administration of poisons. 
The only motive assigned for his conduct was, the delight which he 
was presumed to take in witnessing persons suffer excruciating tor- 
ture. This man was condemned to suffer the penalty of the law,, 
and was executed. Ought he not to have been sent to a mad-houses. 

The following case of homicidal insanity excited much attention 
in France, and amongst the medical men created considerable dis- 
cussion: Henriette Conover, a female servent twenty-seven years of 
age, was of mild and lively disposition, full of gaiety and remarka- 
blo fond of children. Suddenly a singular change was observed in 
her deportment. She became silent, melancholy, disturbed in 
thought, and finally sunk into a state of stupor. This was in the 
month of June. She was dismissed from her place on account of 
her mental dejection, and in the month of September attempted to 
commit suicide. In the following October she entered into the service 
of Mndame Fournier — still desponding and melancholy. On the 4th 
of November she suddenly conceived the horrible purpose of mur- 
dering the child of a neighbor. She severed its head from its body 
with a large kitchen knife. She subsequently declared that while 
executing this horrible deed she felt no particular motive either of 
pleasure or of pain. She, however, experienced some emotions of 
fear at the end of two hours. Madame Belam came and inquired 
for her child — "Your child is dead," replied Henriette. She made 
no attempt to escape or to deny the crime. This unfortunate crea- 
ture was tried on the 27th of February, 1826, when the medical 
witnesses declared that though they could not produce any positive 
proof of her insanity, yet they were equally unable to pronounce 
her sane. She was again brought to trial, found guilty of homicidal 
suicide and sentenced to hard labor for life. 

I hope any court and jury will be able by close observation to dis- 
criminate in criminal cases between homicidal criminals and sane 
criminals, which is a very important consideration. I hope the dif- 
ferent courts and councils will not think this short and comper- 
hensive view of jurisprudence in criminal cases of insanity to be an 
intrusion upon their different elevated stations, as it has been my 
whole design to enlighten any portion of them that may never have 
had an opportunity of making the subject of insanity their study, and 



OF INSANITY. 73 

hope, by a clear investigation of this book, they will be much aided 
in defining such cases, and perhaps may be even aided in rendering 
the charge to the jury relative to the insane laws, and the jury might 
be aided in rendering their verdict. I think it unnecessary to add 
much more upon this subject, as I never was a judge of a court or a 
practitioner at the bar, neither did I ever sit as a juror or give testi- 
mony as a witness in a criminal case either of sanity or insanity. I 
was nothing but a common citizen, engaged in the daily avocations 
and pursuits of lite. 

The reader might come to the conclusion that some parts of this 
work are pretty cutting. If so, whatever part they may think good 
they can cherish in their minds, and the bad they can throw aside, 
as it is not intended to be any portion of the law of the land, but a 
family adviser or medical book for the parents, sons and daughters, 
brothers and sisters to read, and heal and be healed. I hope it wili 
cause no division or confusion, but unite you together as a band of 
brothers upon the importance or unimportance of the different sub- 
jects herein contained. United you stand, divined you fall. A man 
may, under the influence of disease of his mental powers, commit 
acts of extravagance, ruin himself and family, become involved in all 
kinds of difficulties, indulge in habits destructive to both body and 
mind, and no restrictive or protective measures be adopted to save 
him from inevitable ruin. The absence of all hallucination or per- 
version of the mental powers is the only thing that saves such an 
unprotected person from sudden destruction. I have received many 
favors from the hands of my friends during my life, for which 1 feel 
very thankful. Some of them have received large favors at my 
hands, for which I hold no claims on them further than to account to 
my creditors and children for any debts they may owe me. If yon 
miss doing an insane man the right favor in due time — according 
to its day and time — it all amounts to nothing in the end. The 
right favor is to have them healed, taught, protected and taken 
cue of. In the midst of counsel there is safety, but in an over 
multiplicity of counsel there is no safety. Of the the latter I 
have in time received a liberal portion. 

In criminal cases of insanity, where the life of the unfortu- 
nate subject is at stake, which, when taken, all he has of an 
earthly nature goes with it. 

The judge and jury should be Washingtonians, 
The medical testimony should be Jeffersonians, 
The counsel should be Ciceros or Patrick Henrjs, 
The friends should all be in their memories, 
The clerk should not give a slip with his pen, 
And the sheriffs should all act like men, 
To the healing of your insane I will cite you all, 
As was advised the Hebrews by the apostle Paul. 



ON SUICIDE. 



Any self-murder might be justly termed suicide. The man who 
shoots himself commits suicide; the man who plunges wilfully into 
the depfhs of the murmuring deep, as it flows swiftly down, encom- 
passed by its banks, and drowns himself, commits suicide; or the man 
who takes inwardly ardent spirits, laudanum or opium, for that ex- 
press purpose, commits suicide; but the act of drawing a razor across 
the throat is and might be distinguished from all other self-murders 
as suicide. 

In giving the general causes that produce suicide or self-murder 
in any way, we will have to be governed in a great degree by the 
same causes heretofore laid down that produce insanity, as it is inev- 
itably the case that insanity is always, with very few exceptions, 
together with this rigid course of maltreatment and abusive lan- 
guage, the forerunner of suicide. I am, therefore, justified in saying 
that, as a general rule, no man would, in a state of sanity, sound in 
body and mind, with malice aforethought, commit this act. It al- 
most invariably originates from some local disease in the brain or 
system — which act man of himself never commits. It is true he 
strikes the blow with his own hand or pulls the trigger with his 
own finger, but strictly speaking the persons under whose care he 
is, and with whom the unfortunate subject may have his immediate 
transactions in life, and those with whom he most frequently asso- 
ciates and looks up to for advice and protection, together with his 
attendant physicians, do the work for him. Hence they become 
his murderers. Some men are committing suicide five, some ten, 
some fifteen and some even for twenty years — making the attempt 
at intervals. Suppose, for instance, that a man conceals himself 
in his room, in the absence of any, person, knowing at the same 
time that it would be impossible for any person to get to him to 
prevent him from committing the act, and after having taken a 
weapon in his hand, reflects for a moment, seeing the errror he is in, 
and lays it down — even if he should not put his intention into exe- 
cution I would say that man was insane or both bodily and mental- 
ly diseased; and their friends, physicians, parents or guardians, as 
the case may be, should take the case in hands immediately, to pre- 
vent it, by treating it upon one of the two plans heretofore laid 



SUICIDE. 



75 



down under the head of treatment in cases of insanity in general. 
By this means they restore the nerve or fibre already affected or 
diseased; and in rendering the service they save the life of the un- 
fortunate subject and win to themselves unfading laurels, as did the 
lord of the young man that went down to Jericho. 

The time to take steps to prevent such fatal accidents from be- 
falling the bodies of unfortunate men, is upon the first attempt you 
may suspect they make at suicide, or upon the loss of the first fibre 
of the brain. Therefore, if taken in hand in a proper manner, it 
is just as easy restored as a common fever or influenza; it requires 
a little more care and caution on the part of the friends and physi- 
cians of the patient, but what of all that when you save the life of 
a fellow being and perhaps have your son or brother in your fireside 
conversations for years to come? In all probability you may thus 
be an instrument in the hands of God in saving a soul in eternity. 
If you see thy brother in fault, chasten him mildly, affectionately 
and brotherly; by so doing you may save thy brothel's soul, receive 
a brighter reward, add stars to your crown and enter with him in- 
to realms of unfading felicity. Then you may sit down at the right 
hand of God, hail Jesus Christ your elder brother, and fall down at 
his feet with your sheaf and cry out, "Here, Lord, is one sheaf that 
thou gavest me in yonder world; I have cultivated the vine and 
thou didst send rain in thy good grace in due season to water and 
replenish its growth.' ' In gathering time, when God shall call upon 
you to account for your stewardship, you can render to him your son, 
brother, patient or friend, as the case may be — fine fruits of your la- 
bors — and the unfortunate subject might be justly termed the fruit 
of thejjvine. You might, with care and kind religious instruction, 
have fine fruit from the vine and fig tree, and be counted meat fit 
for your master's service. 

If the friends of subjects neglect to treat them as insane persons, 
as heretofore laid down under the head of treatment in cases of in- 
sanity, until the disease reaches or terminates in the last stage, by 
all means they should at that time grasp the arm and prevent the 
fatal blow. It is easy to prevent suicide by a little care and caution; 
but when people take a stubborn stand and look upon it as a duty 
to abuse insanity, not considering the moral obligation they owe to 
themselves, their fellow men and their God, and take no steps to 
prevent such things from taking place, they may find their friends 
committing suicide, and then they begin to excuse themselves to 
one another and to the people- But when you investigate this 
matter rightly, you will find that there is but one place to render 
an account, and that is at the bar of Almighty God. You cannot 
render an account for eternal things before any other tribunal. 

It is nice to step up to a little boy who may have been bereaved 
of one or both of his earthly parents and say, before you have 
brought him up, "Sir, you must come down." I would recommend 
the plan of bringing your boys up. Human nature is human na- 



7o 



SUICIDE. 



ture, and human nature in the shape of insanity is easy enough led 
to do wrong contrary to its own will, and frighten it from one de- 
gree of maniacy into another until it commits suicide. Suicide is 
very frequently produced by sudden fright and abusive language. 

You may take a pig and feed and water it until you make it quite 
gentle, and even have a pet of it: but do you quit feeding and wa- 
tering that pig, and let it take a notion into its head that you intend 
to kill it, or turn it into the woods and set the dogs after it, and you 
may run it entirely wild, and if you don't watch very close you will 
never tame it again. Just so with human nature — you may take a 
boy of a dozen years of age, he may be ever so mild, kind and af- 
fable, and let him be bereft of his parent that lay nearest his heart, 
and cease to render him parental advice and begin to abuse him and 
call him a worthless fool, and knock and cuff him about as if he 
were a dog, and show signs of malice and unkind and inhuman 
feeling towards him by telling him he is a burthen to you and that 
you are tired of him, and by making a difference between him and 
other members of the family by slighting him at table, &c, he takes 
notice of all this, but says nothing about it; and you may thus run hu- 
man nature as wild as the wildest deer in the forest — you may run 
it as wild as hell itself, and hell, you know, is death. He looks upon 
himself as a cast off, and like the prodigal son, he becomes willing 
to forsake his father's house, and would rather eat husks with swine 
than ask for a piece of bread. It is not an unfrequent occurrence 
that such treatment produces madness and terminates in suicide. 

Again : you may take a boy at twelve years of age, and let him be 
ever so wild, if you will deal kindly, mildly and gently with him, 
and not hand him bread when he asks for it as if you thought it a 
stone, or a fish as if you thought it a serpent whose fangs might 
jag you, but give them freely and kindly, and in all probability he 
will make a useful member of society. The art of taming is just 
as easy, less expensive and much more agreeable than the art of 
running one wild; and if you are not very careful, about the time 
you think you are doing something great by running them wild, you 
will never tame them. It is much easier to pursue a kind course 
and keep them tame, than it is to get them to return to this condi- 
tion. Just as the twig is bent the tree'is inclined. 

Was there no healing in the waters of the author's native land, 
which once flowed with milk and honey — was there no balm in that 
fertile soil — was there no physician there — was there no Moses who 
could lift up the brazen serpent in the wilderness that he might look 
upon it — was there no good Samaritan to lead him to an inn and 
pay the two-pence to have him healed, or was there no follower of 
the Son of God to lead him out of the tombs to prevent him from 
cutting himself with stones or weapons? The young man hereto- 
fore alluded to who was in the tombs cutting himsdlf with stones, 
was committing suicide. The Son of God did not look upon it as 
a disgrace to heal him and thereby prevent him from destroying 



SUICIDE. 



77 



himself. Those who look upon it as a disgrace to treat such persons 
kindly must look upon themselves as superior to the son of God r 
and he that thinketh himself the greatest shall be the least. 

Again: you may take two horses at from three to four years of 
age — let them be of equal muscular power; take or.e and feed and 
water him regularly and treat him kindly, ride him moderately and 
never overtask his powers, and if he becomes sick, physic him and 
give him rest until he is well, and at ten years he is a good horse, in 
the prime of life, and may, under such a course of treatment, be a 
serviceable horse at twenty. Take the other and hitch him to the 
plough or dray, drive him under the whip all the week, feed and 
water him once or twice a day, lope him fifteen or twenty miles on 
Sunday, and at ten years of age he is a dead horse. Just so with 
human nature — you may take two boys of equal constitution, from 
twelve to fifteen years of age; place one under kind treatment, and 
require from him reasonable labor, and when sick have him taken 
care of until he is well; at thirty years of age he is in the prime of 
life, and under such a course of treatment it is reasanable to suppose 
that he might live out his three score and ten, which is the usual 
time, in the present age of the world, allotted for man, and might 
make a useful member of society all the time. Take the other and 
place him under a rigid course of maltreatment and abusive Ian- 
guage, and thereby break his heart, which is the seat of life; drive 
him under whip and spur day and night; if he becomes sick pay no 
particular attention to him, or if you do undertake to have him 
healed, pour large doses of strong medicine into his system, and 
thereby destroy his health, constitution and mental powers; require 
impossibilities at his hands and drag him imperceptibly into bondage, 
and he becomes hopelessly deranged; yet he knows his condition 
and passively submits to abuse, thinking that they will some day or 
other take his case into consideration before it is forever too late. 
His prospects may be equal or perhaps greater at the outset of life 
than the one placed under kind treatment, but under this rigid 
course, at about thirty years of age, when he is just old enough to 
be in the prime of life, he is a dead man, and in such cases life gene- 
rally terminates in suicide. If he had been placed under the same 
kind of treatment as the other boy, he might also have lived out 
his full time of three score and ten years, and been equally useful to 
society, some people expect their relatives and friends to come to 
them and tell them in plain terms that they intend to commit suicide 
— which course they will never take. If a man steps up to you and 
says, "Sir, I am insane, and if you don't take care of me I will 
take my life," you need not be uneasy— that man will never com- 
mit suicide. But if he tells you that there is a discovery of impor- 
tance to be made, and cites you to the condition of other persons in 
the circle of his acquaintance who are pronounced insane and treat- 
ed as such, and cites you to his own condition, and tells you that it 
will take close watching to make the discovery, you may know pre- 



7S SUICIDE. 

cisely what hs means; he intends that if you do not in a reasonable 
time treat his condition kindly, to commit suicide, and leave you 
the bag to hold with both ends open; and he desires that you, be- 
ing blessed by Almighty God with proper reasoning faculties, will 
take steps by wnich to prevent it. This important duty is enjoined 
upon you as fellow beings, bone of the same bone, flesh of the same 
flesh and dust of the same dust — having sprung from the same ori- 
gin and being created by the same divine hands. It is not only your 
duty to take such steps, but it is your own interest and the well be- 
ing of society. By preventing them from committing suicide or 
doing wrong in any way while in a state of insanity, adds to your 
own safety, peace and happiness. It frequently becomes necessary 
to bring your insane to this or some other institution nearest in 
your reach, not only for their own welfare, but in some instances it 
actually becomes necessary to seek an asylum for them for your 
own safety and that of their families. 

One murder sometimes produces another. Just so with suicides 
— if one man commits suicide, and you have any good reason to 
suspect that it would be more than human nature could bear in any 
other particular individual, then is a good time to take steps to pre- 
vent the second. They very frequently walk their floors for a half 
or a whole night, without sleeping a wink, with a razor in their 
hand, to commit. suicide; and for a short time before they put their 
designs in execution they become sleepless and drink water in large 
quantities, and their appetite fails. I might here say, as a general 
rule, that you may be governed in detecting an intended suicide in 
the same manner laid down for detecting insanity. You will also 
notice a person who is laboring under aberration of mind repeated- 
ly placing his hand to his forehead, where there exist acute pains. 
The insane are quite high-minded, and you connot convince them 
but that suicide is the most honorable premature death that an in- 
sane man can die. If there be honor attached to any premature 
death, they look upon suicide as the greatest. I will venture to say 
that an insane person cannot commit any act lhat would sink them 
in the estimation of a gentleman, but on the contrary, gentlemen 
will protect insanity. None but half-handed fops and swindlers 
will slander it. I do not drop these remarks to encourage men to 
commit suicide, for the friends of the unfortunate subject should 
take steps in due time to prevent it. If you do not take such steps 
or make an -effort to prevent it, where you have had a reasonable 
time to suspect that a suicide might occur, you, under whose care 
an insane man is or should be, are held firmly bound for every drop 
of blood that may be shed in such cases, just as if you had stabbed 
the subject to the heart, and will have to render a strict account at 
the bar of Almighty God for every neglect of duty towards them, 
and for every act and word that may have caused them to commit 
suicide. I hope not one of my readers will think themselves too 
good to take steps to prevent an intended or an expected suicide or 



SUICIDE. 79 

to take care of their insane, for I assure you that if you think your- 
selves too good to make use of lawful means to save the life of an 
unfortunate fellow being, you are not good enough to get to heaven. 
Remember, as above stated, that the Son of God and /the good Sa- 
maritan did not think themselves too good to heal and have healed 
such persons. I have talked with some persons in the course of my 
life who advocated the doctrine that there was a certain time and a 
certain way allotted for each and every individual to die. If this be 
correct, it would go to say that it is no crime to commit suicide, and 
that being so ordained, his friends cannot prevent it, and the death, 
in that event, is not premature. 

I hold that a majority of deaths that occur in the United 
States are premature. No death is mature unless the subject sick- 
ens and dies in peace on his pillow; therefore, the man who com- 
mits suicide dies before his time, simply because no friend has taken 
steps to prevent the blow. I will just ask those who look upon it as 
a disgrace to take such steps, (I hope however there are none of this 
class,) if they think it a disgrace for a woman to nurse and suckle 
the child she bears? The person who is sick and insane is very fre- 
quently in as helpless a condition and as feeble in mind as an infant, 
and if it be no disgrace to nurse one it cannot be to take care of the 
other. I hold it to be a credit to nourish boih, and by neglecting 
that duty towards persons of feeble mind, unpleasant feelings arise 
and the subject commits suicide. How easily could this awful ter- 
mination be prevented by the prompt exercise of medical care! 

I have also talked with a few individuals who hold that men are 
perfectly sane when they commit suicide, and that they very w T eli 
know what they are doing — committing the act solely to wreak 
vengeance upon those who have been accessory in bringing them 
down. I admit that it is in some instances done through a revenge- 
ful disposition in part, but I do not admit that they are sane. Oth- 
ers hold that they sometimes commit suicide on account of money, 
or some former crime that they have secretly committed — prefer- 
ring death to acknowledgment. These ideas are erroneous. What 
good would all the money in the world do a man after he is dead, 
or why should he commit the act on account of any former crime, 
which would make bad worse? If they were to say that the unfor- 
tunate subject preferred death to bondage, tyranny and bad treat- 
ment, they would come nearer the figure. There is, however, no 
general rule without some exceptions. 

When maniacs commit suicide they do it without reflection; they 
frequently throw themselves from a height, a circumstance which 
proves they are led by a blind impulse to the commission of the act, 
without premeditation, by the employment of a means the most 
easy and accessible. They not unfrequently find themselves walking 
their floors with a sharp edged instrument in the hand, attempting 
suicide. At this juncture of time they are governed by a sudden 
impulse, either of a beneficial or destructive nature; they are af- 



80 SUICIDE. 

fected by illusions, imperfect perception of the relation of things, 
and are pursued by panic terrors. They are the sport of their sen- 
sations or hallucinations, which constantly deceive them. One 
wishing to descend from a pinnacle — believing himself on a firm 
basis, mistakes his condition and precipitates himself into an abyss. 

Esquirol gives the following striking views of self-murder in ma- 
niacs, which deserves much consideration. He says: A maniac, 
impelled by hunger, was accustomed to eat whatever came in his 
way. He died suddenly, and on examining the body they found a 
sponge which he had devoured, and which rested in the esophagus. 
Others destroy themselves while endeavoring to perform feats of 
strength and address. The feats of a maniac are of a peculiar char- 
acter. Some believe that by striking their heads against a wall or 
the trunk of a tree they experience relief, as do cattle with mad-itch. 
The writer has^ in the course of his life, struck his head against 
trees, walls, &c, vainly hoping to 'obtain relief. I have also found 
myself, on various occasions, standing on the bank of some river or 
large creek, ready to plunge into the murmuring deep, and also in 
the woods with one end of a rope fastened to a limb of a tree, and 
the other end around my neck. 1 have again found myself with the 
muzzle of a gun placed under the jaw, with my toe at the trigger, 
ready to let the contents into the head. In other instances I have 
found myself standing with a drawn pistol pointing to the right 
temple or to the heart, with the fore finger bearing on the trigger with 
some force. The checking powers, however, not having lost their 
whole force, would move up with energy and disappoint the fatal 
intention. But finally the checking and correcting powers all lost 
their balance, and I nearly effected suicide by drawing a razor across 
my throat. Notwithstanding all this, I am yet permitted by an all- 
wise God to continue to breathe, and am improving gradually every 
day. It is passing strange that my life is held so sacred and precious 
in the sight of Him who gave it — for what purpose He only knows 
— but I hope for a good one. 

Esquirol states that maniacs destroy themselves at the commence- 
ment of the disease, being driven to despair. This class of patients 
take their lives because they have a knowledge of the disease which 
is commencing, which plunges them into despair. There are others 
who destroy themselves during convalescence, being rendered des- 
perate by the excesses they have committed or ashamed of having 
been insane. In many instances persons are very rriuch abashed to 
acknowledge themselves insane. They expect their friends to find 
out the fact. Those who are suffering from fever destroy themselves 
as other maniacs. 

Esquirol also justly remarks that every case of mono-mania may 
lead to self-murder, whether the subject obeys his illusions or hallu- 
cinations or falls a victim to a delirious passion. A mono-maniac 
hears an internal voice which is constantly repeating "slay thyself," 
and he commits suicide in obedience to a superior power whose 



SUICIDE. 81 

mandate he cannot disobey. I maintain, however, that in such 
cases self-murder might be prevented by the friends of the unfortu- 
nate subjects treating them as insane persons. 

He states that a man whose brain was deranged by some ob- 
scure and mystified notions, believed that he was in communica- 
tion with God. I have no doubt of the unfortunate man's condition, 
for I have imagined myself thus situated on a thousand occasions, 
and firmly believed that I heard a celestial voice which caused me 
to spring from window to window and from garret to basement, 
when I eventually attempted suicide, I was lost in astonishment and 
wonder on finding myself wounded. It seemed as if some myste- 
rious, luminous chariot was wafting me away to Heaven. I suffered 
more in imagination than in reality, but perhaps I was insensible of 
the extent of my sufferings. 

Crichton cites many cases as examples of homicidal suicide, ta- 
ken from German authors, (among them the following) and remarks 
that many of those unfortunate beings who constitute the subjects 
of his observations being unable to resolve to kill themselves, have 
taken the lives of others, hoping thereby to be condemned to death. 
Examples aie given of those who, during a paroxysm of jealousy, 
anger or revenge, have slain the objects of their passion and then 
themselves. "We had," says Esquirol, at the Salpetriere, a woman 
who desired to hang herself. A brother having become enamored 
of his own sister, on learning that she was about to be married, 
stabbed her and threw himself from the window. A shoemaker, for 
ten years a melancholist, imagined that the purchase of a house 
which he had made was the cause of his misfortune, and during a 
fit of despair he slew his wife and three children, and would have 
slain the fourth had it not escaped his rage. After this horrible sa- 
crifice he laid open his own abdomen, but the stroke not being mor- 
tal, he raised the instrument and transfixed his heart. This man 
enjoyed a good reputation and was of a mild disposition." 

Thus those wretched beings who destroy others before they com- 
mit suicide, obey those vehement passions which lead them quickly 
to this double homicide. In some instances they are aroused by 
passions which are slow in developing themselves. There are others 
who murder the tenderest objects of their attachment and then kill 
themselves, being unwilling to be separated from them, and believ- 
ing that they will be reunited after death. In other instances they 
slay them in order to \ reserve them from the trials of life and the 
dangers of condemnation. I will state the case of a female under 
good moral character, who suddenly became deranged and was left 
at noon-day at her own residence with an infant child which she had 
borne. On the return of her husband he found his darling infant 
slain by the hands of its mother. She had even gone so far as to 
cut up and salt the poor child in a churn. She imagined that it was 
a fatted pig, and was no doubt wholly insensible of the awful conse- 
quences of committing so heinous a crime. Protective measures 



3Z SUICIDE. 

were adopted by her husband, and fortunately, for instead of this 
case terminating in suicide, she measurably recovered from the shock 
and became tolerably cheerful, though no doubt a remorse of con- 
science pursued her through life. She was still living, however, a 
few years ago, as I heard of her in 1832 or '33. Her husband de- 
tected her condition and pursued a prudent course towards her, 
otherwise the poor frightened woman would have been in a deplora- 
ble condition. 

Many mono-maniacs permit themselves to pine away and refuse 
all aliments, believing that in this way they may be prepared to die 
easily. The father of the celebrated Barthey allowed himself to die 
of hunger at the age of ninety, in despair at the loss of his second 
wife. 

Suicide is less frequent among women than men; the exaltation 
of their sensibility, the transports of their imagination, the exagge- 
ration of their tenderness and their religious affections produce mala- 
dies opposed to suicide, from which they are still further removed 
by the gentleness of their disposition and their timidity. They suf- 
fer from the vapours and other nervous diseases and become insane, 
and when they do take their own lives it is usually love or lyphma- 
nia that leads them to the commission of the act. I will venture to 
say that the proportion of men to women who commit suicide is 
four to one. 

Some authors speak of epidemics of suicide which have been con- 
fined to women. I he appearance of an epidemic form of suicide is 
most singular. Does it depend on a latent condition of the atmos- 
phere — upon imitation, so powerful in its influence over the deter- 
minations of men — upon those circumstances which produce a revo- 
lution in a country — in fine, upon any governing sentiment? It is 
evident that these temporary epidemics are the effects of various 
causes, and confirm what has been already said. 

Esquirol gives an account of one woman having hung herself, 
other women felt themselves impelled to follow her example. — 
Also, some years since, in the environs of Etampes, a priest hung 
himself, and in a few days after two others also destroyed them- 
selves, and some other persons imitated them. 

In addition, I will here drop another remark relative to my own 
ease. Upon the very day of hearing of the death of my brother 
by drowning, (referring to it in a former page, and which was the 
first cause of my insanity) I made an attempt at self-murder by 
drowning. I remember distinctly to have walked on the banks 
of the Big Bigby for a time, and occasionally stop stock still. I 
would then sit down for a while and rise fully determined in my 
own mind to plunge into the water and put an end to my existence. 
I thus pondered upon the impropriety of making the leap for at 
least half a day, making the attempt at intervals. Again: I nev- 
er heard of a man committing suicide with a razor or knife, or 
committing self-murder in any way, but what I was impercepti- 



SUICIDE. 83 

bly led to make the attempt in precisely the same manner, but I 
never unfolded this to any person living — no, not even to my own 
bosom companion, until I brought it into action, which to many 
persons may seem passing strange, especially those who are un- 
informed upon the subjects of insanity, mono-mania, mania or 
suicide; but to those who know anything about the disease it will 
not be surprising, for I assure you, as heretofore stated, that the 
man who makes it notorious that he intends to commit suicide, 
will never take his life; it is the very last thing he will do. He 
will evade the subject whenever hinted at, and will converse 
freely on any other subject in preference to the one in contem- 
plation. Many other cases might be referred to, but these are 
sufficient to keep every rational mind on the alert where an in- 
tended suicide may be suspected. 

As I have given you a piece of poetry at the close of each sub- 
ject throughout the book, I will here insert the description of a 
woman found drowned, which is taken from a collection of po- 
ems published by Wood: 

Touch her not scornfully, 
Think of her mournfully 

Gently and humanely: 
Not of the stains of her, 
All that remains of her 

Now is pure womanly. 

Who was her father? 
Who was her mother? 

Had she a sister? 
Had she a brother? 
Was there a dearer one 
Still— a nearer one 

Yet than all other? 

Alas for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 

Under the sun! 
0, it was pitiful — 
Near a whole city full, 

Home she had none. 

Where the lamps quiver 
So far in the river, 

With many a light 
From window and casement, 
To garret to basement, 
She stood with amazement) 

Houseless by night. 

The bleak wind of March 
Made her tremble and shiver, 
But not the dark arch, 
Or the black flowing river. 



84 



SUICIDE. 



Mad from life's history, 
Glad to death's mystery 

Swift to be hurled, 
Any where — any where- 

Out of the world. 



In she plunged boldly, 
No matter how coldly 

The rough river ran- 
Over the brink of it 
Picture it, think of it, 

Dissolute man! 
Lare in it, drink of it 

Then if you can% 



THE POSSIBILITY OF APOSTACY. 



In the different religious denominations various and different creeds 
and doctrines of faith are held on the possibility and impossibility of 
apostacy. I hope it will be no intrusion upon the readers of this 
book for me to give my views in a short and comprehensive manner 
on this subject, as I conceive that the subjects of insanity and religion 
are closely allied; and as this subject is intended for the closing of 
the book, and stands entirely seperate from the others as regards its 
place in the book, it cannot possible clash with the subject of insani- 
ty, but, in all probability, will throw some new light upon that and 
some other subjects herein contained. 

I would advise all ministers of the Gospel to refrain from preach- 
ing up the doctrine of election and reprobation in its broad and harsh 
terms — that God fore-decreed and fore-ordained all things whatso- 
ever cometh to pass, and that man cannot prevent it. I conceive it 
to be a dangerous doctrine to preach to a young and rising genera- 
tion. If he thus decrees, he must be the author of sin. Would any 
man in the present enlightened age of the world say that God de- 
creed that a midnight assassin should wilfully, with malice afore- 
though, plunge a dagger to the heart of his fellow man and usher 
him into the presence of the judge of all the earth? If so, you 
would charge him with the murder; for if he has decreed thus, 
the act could not be prevented. Or would you pretend to charge 
your Creator with having decreed that you should drive your insane 
or idiots from your fireside conversations, and knock and cuff them 
about as if they were dumb brutes, or build a pen for them and throw 
an ear of corn to them as you would to a hog, or a chunk of meat 
and bread, as you would feed a dog, or as if they had neither a soul 
to be saved or lost. It is a nice way to heal. It only sinks the poor un- 
fortunate soul into a further state of desperation. God decrees no 
such things, and the man who stands up in the face of authority and 
charges him thus, charges him falsely, and will have to render a 
strict account in the last and final day for advancing such erroneous 
ideas; and the man that would treat the insane or idiot thus should be 
hung upon a gallows or burnt at a stake. 

If he decrees any thing, it is that you whom he blesses with the 
power of thinking for and taking care of yourselves, should take 
care of your insane and idiots, and if you live in that neglect you 



86 APOSTACY. 

break his decrees and receive to yourselves the greater damnation. 
You cannot find a passage of scripture within the lids of the Bible, 
from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations, wherein 
you are authorized to cheat and defraud, abuse and maltreat any 
man, much less the insane and idiot; but you can find where you are 
commanded to heal, teach, feed and cloth them. What do your 
Bibles teach you to do with the halt and the maimed, and those that 
are diseased either in body or mind, let the disease be of what- 
ever character it may? Read it and you will learn. Remember, it 
is the book of all books. 

I maintain that a soul may be borne of the spirit of the living God, 
by the efficacy of the blood of his son Jesus Christ being applied to 
his heart, and have a bright manifestation of his acceptance with the 
Father, and backslide to a considerable extent, and yet become re- 
claimed and healed of his backslidings, purged of his old sins, and 
received into the favor of God again. But if he entirely apostatises 
and denies his Lord, Judas like, it is impossible to renew him unto 
repentance again, seeing he has crucified his Lord afresh and put 
him to an open shame. It would have been better for him that he 
had never known the way, than, after he has know it, to depart from 
it; and he stands exposed to a heavier curse from the wrath of a sin 
avenging God, than the sinner who has never been converted. 

I do not hold that a man may embrace religion to-day and lose it 
to-morrow, but that he may gradually diminish in his religious 
duties until it will even become a burthen to him to repeat the Lord's 
prayer. Let him that thinketh he stands, take heed lest he fall; 
and if you should fall Into the pit from this high station, once hav- 
ing been in the favor of God, living under his kind protection and 
chastening rod, mark ye, it will be hard work to get out of it again 
and become initiated into the favor of God. 

Suppose you plant a vineyard and sit down and say to yourself, 
"I have planted my vineyard and anticipate a fine lot of fruit," and 
never cultivate it, but suffer it to be trodden under foot by the beasts 
of the forest, do you suppose that, you would ever gather any fruit 
from the vines? It would be folly to arrive at such a conclusion. 
You would be most likely to gather thorns and thistles instead of 
grapes. But if you will prune and cultivate your vineyard, God 
will send rain in due season to refresh the growth of the vines, and 
in gathering season you will be able to gather bountifully of the fruit 
of, and may have twelve baskets left to carry up. 

Just so in a religious point of view. God in his goodness sows 
the good seed of grace in your hearts, and if you go back into the 
world and return to the vomit or wallow in the mire, the good seed 
of grace will be choked by the thorns, devoured by the fowls of the 
air, or parched up by the rays of the sun, and the good seed of grace 
will die in your hearts and you will go with the uncultivated vine- 
yard. But if you cultivate this good seed of grace sown in your 
hearts, according to the terms laid down in the book of God, he 



APOSTACY. 87 

will replenish the growth of the seed, and it will spring up and 
bring some sixty, some ninety and some an hundred fold, and you 
will be as a city set on a hill, giving a brilliant light to all around you, 
and you will rank with the cultivated vineyard. 

Again : If you plant a field of corn and sit down and do not cul- 
tivate it, would you expect that the Son of God would decend and 
cultivate your crop for you? or would you not expect to have empty 
barns during the winter, and your stock to perish for the want of 
food and with cold? But if you would cultivate your crop well, 
you wight expect in gathering time to have your barns and garners 
filled to overflowing with grain ard provender. 

Just so in a religious point of view. It is just as reasonable to 
suppose that the Son of God would descend and cultivate and prune 
your vineyard and plough your corn, as it is to suppose that he 
would descend personally and feed, cloth and heal your insane and 
idiots. He descends in spirit and blesses the means which he 
may place in your hands by which you might heal if properly ad- 
ministered. 

Again: Suppose you were to set out to go from this to the city of 
Washington, and when you reach Wheeling, Va., face to the left 
about anci come back to the city of Nashville. Do you suppose you 
would ever reach Washington in that way? But when at Wheeling, 
if you would face to the right about and persue your journey, you 
would soon arrive at your place of destination. 

Just so in a religious point of view, if you set out to live a reli- 
gious life and run well for a while until you reach the prime of life, 
and get in sight of Paradise or the promised land, living under the 
protection of a divine hand, and receiving from it daily spiritual and 
temporal blessings, and reaching this point, face about and go back 
into the service of the divil, do you suppose you would ever reach 
heaven or enter into the city of God? If you do, you are very much 
mistaken. But when you get in site of Paradise or the promised 
land, if you would face to the right about and pursue your journey 
according to the terms laid down in the holy will of the Son of God, 
you, through the mercy and goodness of God, would reach the 
heavenly city and enter into the joys of thy Lord; and as corrup- 
tion puts on incorruption in the conversion of the soul, and remains 
during this spiritual journey through the variegated changes and 
scenes of life, it remains in this state of incorruption and mortality 
combined. Notwithstanding you may be in a state of incorruption, 
you are still mortal beings— possessing mortal bodies and human 
nature ; and if you live faithful to your Creator in the discharge of 
your different duties towards him, you will enjoy the peace and 
sunshine showered upon your outgoings and incomings by a kind 
protecting hand; and in the trying and final hour mortality puts on 
immortality, and the soul takes its heavenly flight, borne up by the 
power of God, and will be received into the kingdom of God, where, 
at the right hand of the Father, it will forevermore bask in unfading 



88 APOSTACY. 

felicity. But take heed, while you are in this state of incorruption 
and mortality combined, lest you slip back into a state of corrupt- 
tion and be ranked with the five foolish virgins, and be found with- 
out oil in your lamps when you come to stand before the bridegroom 
of the supper of the Lamb, and be cast into the pit of darkness, 
where weeping and wailing will never cease. May my readers 
always have oil and their lamps well trimmed, that they may be 
classed with the five wise virgins, and permitted to partake of the 
supper of the Lamb. 

As it regards election and reprobation, you are elected or repro- 
bated in the hour and article of death, according to the manner of 
your conduct through life. Do not understand me to say that man 
of himself, short of the goodness of God, can make his election ; but 
by living in the discharge of the different duties enjoyned upon him, 
as laid down in the book of God, he makes his calling and election sure. 

Suppose two men become candidates for an office of profit or 
honor, and one, by his good conduct, gains the confidence of the peo- 
ple, you cast your vote in favor of the man of good conduct — there- 
fore his election is secured to him for his good conduct. But 
the other, by his misconduct, loses the confidence of the people and 
thereby looses his election. Just so, by your good or bad conduct, 
you secure to yourselves your election in the favor of God, or make 
your reprobation and lose your election in the favor of Him. James 
says, "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee 
my faith by my works." Still, after we have done all, we are no- 
thing but unprofitable servants. Remember Lot's wife looked back 
at the destruction of Sodom and turned to a pillar of salt. I would 
advise all ministers of the Gospel, when they undertake to preach 
the word of the Son of God, to arise, take their texts and stick to 
them, preach the doctrines of the Bible according to the light thrown 
upon the subject, personate no man, and when they get through to 
be very certain that they quit. For a minister of the Gospel, who 
stands between the living and the dead, to arise and take his text and 
preach until he is about half through his discourse; and then quit 
the subject and begin to personate his congregation, and say, "You, 
sir, and you, sir, have got to go to the devil, and the balance, or a 
few of the chosen of us, have got to go to heaven in a hand-basket," 
is only making a mock of the ministry, and very frequently makes 
bad impressions on the minds of his audience. 

I would advise medical men, when they undertake to heal their 
patients, to be very certain that they do heal. You may heal a man 
and you may heal at him. A real medical man can heal, and a 
quack can heal at his patient. If a man be taken suddenly sick and 
sends for you, he is considered your patient until he gets well, dies 
or orders you to stop your visits. If you do not intend to treat him 
as your patient, I would advise you not to pay him the first visit. 
Thus he would know what to depend upon, and his friends would 
procure other medical aid. Never neglect your patients, for many 



APOSTACY. 



89 



a life is lost for want of proper attention, and the blame must attach 
to the physician. Medical men are instruments in the hands of God 
to heal, or instuments in the hands of the devil to hurry them into 
eternity. I have paid doctors several hundred dollars in the course 
of my life to be healed, but they invariably pursued a rigid course, 
and always left me in a worse condition than they found me ; hence 
they destroyed my constitution and mental faculties. 

I hope the reader will not conceive, in my remarks in a former 
page, where I held that baptism by immersion to be the only true 
mode, that I intended to convey the idea that it was regeneration, 
or even running before or with regeneration, but on the contrary, 
regeneration should run before baptism. You may plunge a man to 
the bottom of Cumberland river, or pour all the water in the river 
upon him, and if he is not born of the spirit of the living God by 
the efficacy of the blood ot his Son being applied to his heart, it will 
never save him. As before stated, baptism is not the putting away 
of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience. I 
hope the ministers of the Gospel and medical gentlemen will not 
consider that I have been personal in my remarks either to them- 
selves or churches, for my intentions are far from cousing any ill 
feelings. 

There was a certain rich man who fared sumptuously every day — 
poor Lazarus lay at his gate and begged the crumbs that fell from 
his table. Lazarus died and was received into Abraham's bosom. 
The rich man died also, and lifted up his eyes in hell and saw Laza- 
rus afar off, and prayed to Abraham to let Lazarus dip the tip of his 
finger in water and cool his parched tongue; but there was a great 
gulf fixed between so that no man could pass. He then prayed that 
Abraham would send him back, that he might warn his five brethren 
not to come to that awful place of torment. "Not so," said Abra- 
ham. "They have Moses and the prophets, and if they will not 
believe them, they would not believe even if one was to rise from 
the dead." The writer of this has been raised from the dead: will 
you read and believe him or not. 

Jonah was called of God to warn the Ninevites, 

Lest he that great city should destroy; 
He fled from his presence both by day and night, 

And on ship at sea took voyage. 

But him the spirit of God did pursue, 

And when the waves rolled high 
They did cast lots and Jonah over threw; 

God had a fish prepared close by 

To preserve his life and make him his duty do. 

So he did return again to obey the Lord, 
And warned the Ninevites of their overthrow; 

They repented at his preaching and were spared. 

So did he prepare close by a great Fain, 
My wounds to heal, 



90 



APOSTACY. 



And caused me to breath again, 
These mysteries to reveal. 

So he this great Asylum hath prepared, 

To unfold these secrets and spare my life; 
Will the people read it and be spared, 

Lest He this great world might set on fire? 

I hope no man will think I'm personating. 

By using the Alphabet to unfold ; 
If they do they will be contemplating 

Something yet untold. 

This work will o'er this wide domain be spread, 

So you will sweep off the first edition with your silver brooms, 

For in its precepts contains both meat and bread, 
That I may pay the printer and furnish all your reading rooms, 

Perhaps some gentlemen, to look and show smart, have written 
some scurrilous pieces and put them in print about me ; if so, I will 
answer them by placing them in their arithmetic in the rules of Loss 
and Gain, as all men who place their names in public print either 
lose or gain laurels. I will ask them to count up the cost and see if 
they can tell how many laurels they have lost or gained, as it is not 
reasonable to suppose that gentlemen could possible gain any laurels 
by becoming the defamers of, or the declaimers against Insanity. 
1 have seen some smattering eloquence, the writers of which, I sup- 
pose, alludes to me. First take the beam from thine own eye, and 
then thou cans't see clearly how to take the mote out of the eyes of 
the insane. Thus they might see how to get upon the right side of 
the fence upon the most important subject in the world. 

I noticed in some of the scurrilous pieces above alluded to, (the 
writer of which I suppose allude to me, though if mistaken I ever 
stand ready for correction) that some one of the authors charge me 
with having been in the habit of visiting houses of ill fame. In 
answer to that, and in defence of the character of my orphan chil- 
dren or others of my friends whom it may concern, I will defy any 
man living to produce the proof, from a respectable source, that 1 
have ever had a child, living or dead, except those born of my own 
wife, with whom I was lawfully married on the 29th day of June, 
1826, in Maury county, Tennessee. I never was a visitor of houses 
of ill fame during the whole course of my life, except in one instance, 
and then I was forced in by violence by a couple of pretended friends, 
some time in 1835, in the city of Nashville. Neither .vas I ever 
guilty of murder, except an attempt at self-murder while in a state 
of insanity. Neither was I ever guilty of theft, unless failing to 
meet my contracts be theft, and if that is considered theft a great 
many very honest men are thieves. On the contrary, as was the 
case with the young man that went down to Jericho, I have been 
defrauded of the last dollar I had in the world on several occasions, 
and yerked out of means in various ways by unjust and unfair 
measures, when I was sick and insane, enough to make any of my 



APOSTACY. 



91 



readers independent. At a time when I did not know the value of 
one dollor, they parted my raiment and cast lots for my vesture. 

I see another writer charges me with having shipped twenty mil- 
lions of souls to Jamaica, and thus betrayed my country. I never 
shipped a soul to Jamaica or any other government in my life; nor 
was 1 ever beyond the limits of the United States, either in person or 
correspondence. It would be a strange phenomena in a man's life 
if he could do all these things and be in his own country all the 
time. 

I have been told that other writers have asserted that it was 
me who brought the cholera from another country to this, which 
is erroneous, and would be equally strange to even suppose that 
a man could bring the cholera from France to this country when 
the wide ocean is between the two governments, and the man 
never out of the United States. I will leave their broad and un- 
founded assertions and problems for themselves to solve. The 
very face of their assertions bears the color of falsehood. 

I never was an abolitionest in principle or a member of an ab- 
olition society. It is passing strange that a few designing indi- 
viduals, reckless of the welfare of the unfortunate, should select 
me from the insane portion of the human family to make their 
thrusts and pass their darts at in preference to all others, when 
it is a fact that the more refined, high-minded and honorable 
part of the community are disposed to sympathise at my mis- 
fortunes. 

I did not intend to notice these scurrilous pieces or their 
authors in this book, but I give this short sketch in defence of the 
character of my children, and will write no more on this subject 
unless I see more charges from their pens. 

As I offered a reward of five hundred dollars during my life 
for any man to detect my condition, and act upon it as they 
should do in cases of insanity, I will now offer a reward of one 
hundred dollars for a work upon any subject not herein con- 
tained, to surpass all of these subjects combined, from the pen 
of any man that is precisely in my condition, without the aid 
of any second person. The balance of this year will be allowed 
for the production, to be adjudged of by a committee of respecta- 
ble and talented gentlemen, to be selected by the parties from 
among the citizens of Nashville. It must be original, as is this, 
and accompanied with proof of the fact from a respectable 
source. 



YOUTH AND FUTURE LIFE 



Charmed by the voice of fame and allured by the hope of wealth, 
the youth forsakes the parental roof in quest of the happiness and 
honors of time things, which are perishing in their nature. His 
first grand object is to seek one among the fair offspring of the land 
to cheer and buoy him above the sordid cares of time. His eyes are 
fixed upon one whose faultless form and airy step is altogether lovely: 
he enters upon the stage of a hymenial life with her; she immedi- 
ately becomes a minister of mercy to direct and lead him to realms 
of unfading felicity, or an enchanting companion on the road to 
perdition. May every female reader of this book be a minister of 
mercy — I hope not one of them will be an enchanting companion, 
They live thus together, sharing each others' joys, as the brilliance 
of the meridian sun, or the ills, sordid cares, enchantments and al- 
lurements of the prince of the power of the air, until the messen- 
ger of death demands his terrific claims and she is swept from his 
embraces. He gives way to that peevishness which is too often at- 
tendant upon gray hairs; the world begins to wear a sallow hue; 
every thing seems changed save some favorite child, on whom is 
fixed all his love, until he pays the last debt of nature, and enters 
into another and better, or worse existence. The immortal part 
will then stand before the judge of all the earth, to share a portion 
of her sufferings in endless pain and woe, wrought up by the ills of 
this life, or enjoy with her the fruits of their labors gained by a 
Godly course and pious conversation. They meet the offspring of 
their bodies in the haven of repose and eternal bliss, and each shall 
receive a bright crown of never fading glory. He can then say, as 
one of old, "I have fought a good fight — I have kept the faith — I 
have finished my course; henceforth there is a crown laid up for me 
— a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, 
will give me on that day, and not unto me only, but unto all those 
that love his appearing." His dying couch will be surrounded by 
friends, and he will bid farewell to all time things, imploring the 
mercies of a benificent creator to rest upon their heads; bright se- 
raphs will conduct him through cold Jordon's icy arms to join the 
patriarchs, elders and the hosts of heaven, and seat him at the feet 



YOUTH AND FUTURE LIFE. 93 

of his Redeemer, where he will pluck the ambrosial fruits prepared 
for him by the Father of us all. 

The blessed of the Lord will patiently await their final doom until 
the sounding of the last loud trump, when the archangel Gabriel shall 
descend and place one foot upon sea and the other upon land and 
proclaim that time shall be no more; when the seas, mountains and 
dales will be in one general conflagration, and be consumed as the 
drop of potter's clay or the crater of the volcano. The dead in 
Christ will be first aroused from their mouldering urns, mortality 
will put on immortality, and outstrip in their heavenly flight the 
tornado of heated flames, and fly through the trackless air to that 
home where pain and trouble never comes, there to put on white and 
spotless robes, receive a crown and golden harp, drink of the waters 
of life and shout victory and praises to the Redeemer through end- 
less ages. 

Walk with me, if you please, on board the old ship of Zion — her 
sails unfurled, her banners hoisted high, her flag of peace inviting 
passengers to embark, the ^rrace of God her mariner, and Jesus 
Christ her chief captain, to lead each passenger and way-worn 
traveler, through the merits of the bluod of a crucified Redeemer, to 
her port of destination, Heaven. Who would not seek a passage on 
this great ship? If you have not obtained permission from the great 
captain of the vessel for a voyage, this is the very day to make ap- 
plication, less a passport might be refused in future. The doors of 
the ship stand wide open, and the captain is reaching out his hand 
to invite and conduct you safe to the gates of Heaven. Read the 
holy will of the son of God, and you will find in plain terms how, 
where and to whom to make application, what door to knock at for 
admittance, a description of heaven and the terms of admittance 
through the gates, which is without money and without price — the 
sum having been paid in advance more than eighteen hundred years 
ago on Mount Cavalry. 

The summer breeze was sighing my auburn locks among, 

Pale was my cheek and hollow, where traces deep were drawn, 

Whilst near a harp was lying, neglected and unstrung, 
Of some mysterious sorrow that wasted life's fresh morn. 

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps 

The disembodied spirits oi the dead, 
"When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 

And perishes among the dust we tread? 

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain, 

If there I meet thy gentle presence not. 
Nor heai the voice I love, nor read again 

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. 

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there — 

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? 
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, 

Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven? 



94 YOUTH AND FUTURE LIFE. 

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, 
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, 

And larger movements of the unfettered mind, 
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? 

The love that lived through all the stormy past, 
And meekly with my harsher nature bore, 

And deeper grew and tenderer to the last, 
Shall it expire with life and be no more? 

A happier lot than mine and larger light 
Await thee there — for thou hast bound thy will 

In cheerful homage to the rules of right, 
And lovest all and renderest good for ill. 

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, 

Shrink and consume the heart as heat the scroll, 

And wrath hath left its scar: that fire of hell 
Hath left its frightful scar upon my soul. 

Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, 

Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name — 
The same fair thoughtful brow and gentle eye, 
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, but the same? 

Shalt thou not teach me in that calmer home, 
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this — 

The wisdom which is love — till I become 
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? 

And were wistful glances cast towards my wooing lyre, 
I might not check its lurings, but seize my harp again, 

And half suppressed, advance, as stirred the poet's fire, 
And quick to numbers tuning, awake its mournful strain. 



- C. fayjlr. 






CONCLUSION. 



In conclusion, I must, in justice to my old and faithful friend, 
the editor of the Nashville Union, and also to the publisher, re- 
turn my heartfelt thanks for the liberality extended to me in my 
present pecuniary embarrassed condition. They have been my 
unwavering friends in aiding me to get my work before the public. 

I trust that a close adherence to the precepts herein laid down 
will be the means of saving the lives of millions of my fellow- 
beings who now are and may become mentally deranged. As 
five thousand souls were once fed with two fishes and five loaves 
of bread, I fondly hope that the proceeds of this work will feed 
my five orphan children. As I have no two-penny loaves and 
fishes to predicate the publication on, I am much gratified to 
find my old friends, with whom I have been intimate from my 
boyhood, marching forward without hesitation, in one solid pha- 
lanx, to aid me in the sale of my work, which I have completed 
under the circumstances of a peculiar character. 

The traveling preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
throughout the United States are requested to act as agents in 
their respective circuits. Their orders will be promptly filled 
and liberal commissions allowed them for services. 

There is, perhaps, nothing short of the goodness of God that 
can effect a final cure of my disease. I am perfectly resigned to 
His will, and await his final coming and decision with hope. — 
Soliciting an interest in the prayers of the followers of the Son 
of God, I bid my readers an affectionate adieu. 



■< 



<o 



A SECRET WORTH KNOWING. 



A TREATISE 



ON THE 



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MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT IN THE WORLD 



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SIMPLY TO SAY, 



INSANITY, 



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THE ONLY WORK OF THE KIND IN THE UNITED STATES, 

OR, PERHAPS, IN THE KNOWN WORLD, FOUNDED 

ON GENERAL OBSERVATION AND TRUTH. 



There are other Medical books which treat on Insanity, but comparatively 
few to the population, and none written by an Insane man. This contains a 
short History of the Author's case — giving the General Causes which pro- 
duced the Disease on him individually, Manner of Treatment and Termina- 
tion. «Giving the Treatment by which a Cure may be effected, the Man- 
ner of Detecting the Disease, and the Duties of Sane Parents towards the 
Insane offspring of their bodies; with some general remarks upon Idiolism, 
the Jurisprudence of Insanity, Suicide, &c. 



BY G.GRIMES, 

AN INMATE OF THE LUNATIC ASYLUM OF TENNESSEE. 






NASHVILLE, TENN. 



1846. 



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